


Let it out and let it in

by Signe_chan, Trojie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dubious Consent, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Magical Pregnancy, Mpreg, Trials of Hell, Unplanned Pregnancy, near-miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:16:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Signe_chan/pseuds/Signe_chan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a mysterious medallion comes Sam and Dean's way that seems like it might help Kevin in his efforts to translate the Demon Tablet, naturally they rush it straight to him. But the artefact isn't what it seems, Kevin gets hit with a sex curse, and Sam's the only person around to help him through it. And that's only the <i>start</i> of everyone's problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Conception

**Author's Note:**

> This was plotted and largely written before we knew what the second and third trials were going to be. It goes AU after 8x13 'Everybody Hates Hitler'.
> 
> (Note on the major character death is at the end.)

Sam hated breaking into museums. They had too many entrances, too many exits, too many nasty little corners for security to hide in, too many high ceilings for cameras. Then there was the fact that they were usually breaking in to steal something. Stealing from museums was in some way worse than stealing from private owners. It seemed unfair.

This specific museum, though, was a little local affair; the security was full of holes, and Sam and Dean were there to _stop_ stuff getting stolen. Although, Sam couldn't help but point out in the safety of his own head, if the directors would just beef up the security then they wouldn't keep losing their Early Christian artefacts to demons.

This particular demon had broken in every night for a week, removing a single artifact each time like they thought they wouldn’t get caught that way. Or, well, a single artifact as far as the curators could work out. This place wasn’t exactly the most scrupulous about its records.

Dean led the way through the quiet, dusty corridors, gun and flashlight out, and Sam followed, hugging the walls and keeping a tight grip on Ruby's knife. If they did run into a demon, knifing them was pretty efficient, and a hell of a lot quieter.

There was a scuffling noise up ahead. Dean motioned Sam to take the other side of the hallway and circle around.

In one of the anterooms, the demon was crouching by a display case, his eyes lowered to the ground and black. It was kind of gratifying to know it was a demon straight off; Sam hated it when they landed themselves in the middle of a situation and discovered it wasn’t a demon after all.

‘This time,’ a familiar voice echoed, and for a second Sam forgot to breath. Crowley. Maybe this was a bigger deal than they’d thought if Crowley was here in person. They’d been under the impression he was all about tablets now. ‘Make sure you pick the right damn artifact. And be gentle with the thing!’

‘I will,’ the demon said, eager. ‘I will find it tonight! There are so many items, but I’m down to the last case. It’ll be in there, I swear!’

Sam knew the case they were talking about. They’d spoken to the curator earlier. Everything in storage had been gone through, except one last box. The demon must have run out of time before he’d got to it.

‘It has better be,’ Crowley growled. ‘You don’t think we’re doing this for the fun of it, do you? I’d do it myself but I don’t have the time to waste. I don’t want every damn medallion the museum owns, just the one for the prophet. Think you can manage that?’

Sam’s gut clenched. A medallion for the prophet, something to do with Kevin. He didn’t like the thought of Crowley trying to get hold of Kevin again, though he knew it was inevitable that he'd keep trying. Apparently he’d be making a play soon, too, if he was looking for some kind of artifact. Maybe it was some kind of prophet-tracking device?

‘Of course,’ the demon said, a note a desperation in his voice. ‘I’ll bring it to you as soon as I find it.’

‘You’d better,’ Crowley growled. ‘I’m getting bloody sick of this. And for fuck sake don’t touch the thing. Just because it’ll give the prophet clarity of vision doesn’t mean it’ll work on you, though you definitely need it. It should be wrapped. Just open the cloth, take a look and wrap it back up again. There are stories about people who touch these kind of things.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the demon hissed. Dean made a hand gesture and Sam followed him, slipping down the corridor as quietly as they could towards the storeroom that the curator had shown them earlier. He didn’t dare speak until the storeroom door closed behind them.

‘We need to find it,’ he said, turning to where he knew the last box was. ‘And quickly.’

‘Clarity of vision definitely sounds like something we could use,’ Dean agreed, scrambling for the box. Kevin was struggling along with the tablet, but he wasn’t making much progress. Sam’s mind started working over the possibilities. If this thing was as powerful as Crowley seemed to think it was, then maybe it would help him with the translation.

They quickly discarded anything too big to be a medallion, coming up with only a few pieces. Dean unwrapped them quickly; the second one contained a red velvet cloth that was wrapped around a metal disk. That had to be it.

‘Don’t touch it,’ Sam hissed, quickly starting to throw the other things back in the box.

‘I won’t, idiot,’ Dean growled, wrapping the thing again carefully. ‘Come on, let’s get this out of here quickly.’ He made for the door.

Once they left the storeroom, silence fell again. Sam took the flashlight and led the way out of the building, leaving Dean to bring up the rear with the medallion. They made it out to the parking lot and the Impala without even hearing the demons, let alone seeing them, and Sam let out a sigh of relief that, for once, something had actually gone their way.

'We need to get this to Kevin ASAP,' said Dean, staring down at the little bundle of velvet in his hand. 'Here, I think I've got an old curse-box in the trunk somewhere, we can stash it in that while we're carrying it. We don't want to risk getting ourselves zapped with whatever mojo this thing's got accidentally.' He tossed Sam the keys and Sam started rooting around in the car.

The curse box was old and battered, and one of the latches had been bashed off at some point, but it was a container, which was all that mattered. Hell, Sam would have put it in the cooler box if he'd had to. Dean carefully put the medallion inside, and visibly relaxed once he wasn't holding it any more. Sam held out the keys.

'Nah, keep 'em,' said Dean, checking the safety on his gun and then tucking it in his waistband. 'Gimme Ruby's knife - you take that thing to Kevin, I'll deal with Stunt Demon Number Three, and see if Crowley's still around. Wouldn't mind trying to get him too if I could.'

'If Crowley was gonna just let us stab him we'd've managed it by now,' Sam reminded him.

Dean sighed. 'Yeah, I know. But a guy can dream, Sammy. Anyway, you go. We're not that far from Garth's houseboat - you put your foot down, you can get there, drop the thing off, and get back before lunch tomorrow. I can walk back to our motel from here.'

'You sure -'

'Sam. We need Kevin to translate that goddamn tablet more than we need anything else right now. Plus I know you're itching to check up on the kid. Go.'

Sam thought of suggesting that they off the demon together and then go to Kevin, also together, but one look at Dean's face told him that prolonging the discussion wasn't going to change the outcome. 'Okay, see you tomorrow morning then,' he said.

'You take care of my baby, alright?'

'Yes, Dean. I'll take care of your baby. Jeez.'

Dean grinned at him and sauntered, knife in hand, back into the museum. Sam rolled his eyes fondly and got into the car. The box full of medallion went in the passenger's seat, and Sam hit the road.

***

Dean was kinda right. Sam was itching to check up on Kevin. He felt like it was his responsibility, for a start. And he still felt like shit for having abandoned him for so long after the attack on the Leviathan. No question, he'd screwed up badly, and he was pretty determined never to do it again. Particularly with Kevin.

Having a Prophet on their side was such an advantage, tactically. They couldn't afford to lose him to the demons. But part of it was just Kevin. Sam knew what it was like to be young and feel like you were being controlled by something way bigger than you, a destiny you apparently couldn't escape. Maybe Kevin's destiny wasn't to go darkside, sure, but that didn't mean it was easy to deal with.

So yeah, Sam wanted to check up on him. Someone ought to be there to try and help him. And it's not like it was a chore - Sam genuinely liked Kevin, and he felt like he would have liked him if they'd met in other circumstances too. They could have been friends. Maybe they still could be.

Hell, maybe they even were.

He changed gear, watched the front end of the Impala's hood lurch a little bit forward, eagerly, and the pools of light from her headlamps showed up the mile markers flashing by. He checked his watch. Maybe four hours til dawn, and he was still a couple of hours away from Garth's hideout. He stretched a little, and settled into the seat. He spared a glance over at the medallion in its box next to him, and felt something kind of like hope.

***

‘Kevin,’ Sam called out, coming down the stairs into the house boat. He kind of wished they had somewhere more secure to put the kid but Garth had at least layered the place up with as much protection as he could. Oddly, it was actually easier to protect a place on water than on the ground, go figure.

The main room was deserted, but that kind of made sense, it was something like five or six in the morning. Sam dropped the curse box on the table and listened until he heard a weird groaning sound coming from the bedroom, which was probably Kevin dragging himself upright. A few seconds later he heard a bang as Kevin rolled out of bed, and he turned to the wall with a smile, scanning the notes Kevin had left pinned there while he waited for him to appear.

He’d read through a lot of this before; there were a few new things, but nothing of great significance. The going was hard. Kevin had explained to them that reading the tablet wasn’t like reading a book. Everything depended on context, and reading half the tablet was almost more like reading a book with every other letter missing than reading half a book. He was making progress, but it was slow, and they had to get this right. They probably wouldn’t get a second chance. That was why Sam didn’t feel too bad about dragging Kevin out of bed.

'This had better be important,' Kevin grumbled, finally appearing at the door of the bedroom. He was still wearing sweats and a t-shirt and looked as though he might drop back to sleep any second. Sam turned away from the wall and put his hand on the curse box, pushing it towards Kevin.

‘I wouldn’t get you up so early if it wasn’t. We had a run in with Crowley last night, he was trying to get his hands on this. Something about it giving clarity of vision to the prophet.’

‘Clarity of vision sounds good,' Kevin said, looking slightly more awake as he stepped forward and took the box. He lifted the lid carefully and reached inside for the bundle.

‘You might want to sit down if you’re going to touch it,’ Sam said, pulling out a chair for himself. ‘Crowley said only you should, the magic in it’s so powerful.’

‘Alright,’ Kevin agreed, dropping down into his seat on the other side of the table. He unwrapped the thing slowly, being careful not to touch it as he tried to read the symbols on it. ‘I can’t make much sense of this,’ he said with a frown. ‘You’re sure it’s about clarity of vision?’

Sam shrugged. ‘That’s what Crowley said.’

‘Well, I guess there’s one way to find out,’ Kevin said, letting the cloth drop away and taking the medallion in his hand.

The change that came over him was almost instant, his face twisted like it was in pain, and Sam stood, instinctively, like he could somehow fend off the magic, before he realised he’d better not rush to Kevin and risk putting himself in danger or hurting Kevin more.

'Kevin?' Sam said, reaching across the table to grab the velvet that the medallion had been wrapped in. 'Kevin, drop it. Put it down -'

There was a clatter as the thing hit the table top. Sam bundled his hand up in cloth and picked it up, dumping it back in the curse box hurriedly. He was more worried about Kevin. That didn't exactly look like clarity of vision. Kevin was breaking out in a sweat, shaking like he had a fever. Sam grabbed him by the shoulder, trying to get a decent enough look at him to try and work out what the matter was, and he moaned.

Sam let go, hoping like hell he hadn't just made it worse, or hurt Kevin somehow. What the hell was this? His mind was working in overdrive, zero to sixty in a split second the way it always seemed to when watching evil magic take hold like this. He had to fix this. He'd brought it here. He had to fix it. It had to have been the medallion, right? The way this had just hit as soon as Kevin touched it couldn't have been a coincidence.

Either Crowley'd had his intel badly wrong … or they'd been set up.

'Talk to me,' Sam said to Kevin, desperately trying to think this through. 'Kevin, tell me how you feel. What's happening?'

'Hot,' said Kevin thickly. 'Like -'

'Like a fever?'

'Yeah, I guess. I -' He was leaning over now, like he couldn't even stay upright on his own. Leaning towards Sam. Sam carefully edged away, just in case. He didn't want to make this any worse. He wished Bobby were here. Kevin was red in the face, like he was blushing, although that could be fever. Carefully, ready to pull away again if it looked like it was hurting him, Sam pressed the back of his palm to Kevin's forehead the way he vaguely remembered Dean doing for his own childhood fevers.

Jesus, the guy was burning up. Seriously. Kevin made a relieved noise at Sam's touch, probably because compared to his own skin temperature, Sam's hand must have felt like an icepack.

'Come on,' Sam said, letting his hand slip from Kevin's forehead to his shoulder. 'Let's get you horizontal.' He managed to haul Kevin up out of his chair, and slung his arm half around Kevin's back, ready to catch him if he fell on the way back to his bedroom. Clearly Kevin was kind of out of it already if the way he was leaning on Sam meant anything.

Kevin groaned again when Sam tipped him onto the bed, reaching after Sam as he backed away. Sam moved in again, taking Kevin’s questing hand, and Kevin seemed to melt at the contact, falling back against the pillow.

‘You need to help me, Kevin,’ he said, crowding in. ‘Tell me what the symptoms are.’

‘I just,’ Kevin gasped, gripping Sam’s hand. His other hand was scrambling in the sheets. ‘Please, Sam. It hurts.’

‘I know,’ Sam said, eyes darting over Kevin’s body. He was flushed and the tenseness that had left when Sam took his hand was slowly creeping back into the line of his shoulders. ‘I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong. I need symptoms, other than the fever.’ He reached out to touch Kevin’s forehead again but Kevin made a strangled noise at the touch, suddenly rolling away from Sam and curling in protectively on himself.

‘Kevin,’ Sam said, reaching out to grab Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin gave a dry laugh.

‘Can’t believe this,’ he mumbled. ‘Should have … so stupid.’

‘Kevin, let me help you,’ Sam said in what he hoped was a firm voice. His heart was beating a mile a minute, he had to fix this. A tremor had started to develop in Kevin’s arm and this just wasn’t good. ‘Tell me and I’ll phone Dean, we’ll find a solution.’

‘I can’t,’ Kevin sobbed, curling further in on himself. Sam reached out tentatively, pulling him onto his back again. Kevin didn’t fight, just turned his head as Sam finally noticed the problem.

Kevin was hard.

‘Kevin?’ he asked uncertainly, pulling back and Kevin cried out in pain.

‘Feels like fire,’ he cried, grasping for Sam again, embarrassment falling away. ‘Please, help me!’

‘Shit,’ Sam hissed. He’d never seen anything like this before but he’d heard of it. All whispered legend and rumour. Sex curses. It had to be something like that, or why else would Kevin be so hard when he was in so much pain? It definitely didn’t look like a good kind of pain. ‘Just, hang in here for a second. I’m going to phone Dean.’

‘No,’ Kevin cried, forcing himself up to grab for Sam. ‘Please! Hurts less when you touch me.’

‘I’ll only be a minute,’ Sam promised, trying to keep his hands from shaking. He stepped out of the bedroom and grabbed his phone, hitting Dean’s number on his speed dial.

Dean picked up on the third ring - Sam could hear shouting echoing in the background. 'Sam?'

'Crowley was playing us,' Sam said, no time for anything except getting straight to the point. 'That medallion's cursed.'

'Cursed how?'

'Not sure exactly, but … fever, sweats, pain. He was out of it the second he touched the thing. And ...'

'And what?'

Sam thought he'd pretty much got over the concept of embarrassment in the face of danger, but apparently not. He hedged. 'You ever hear of, like, sex curses?' he asked. He hoped Kevin couldn't hear him. This conversation had the potential to get really personal really fast.

Dean swore. 'Are you kidding me?'

'I always thought they were a myth, but … well, the symptom list fits.'

'They're not a myth,' Dean said. 'At least, not according to Dad's journal and a couple of Bobby's older books. They're just rare.'

'Tell me there's a way to cure it,' Sam said urgently. 'Other than -'

'I'll look, Sammy, I promise. But …' Dean trailed off, and Sam could visualise the shrug he was probably giving right now.

'Yeah, I know. Look, I better get back to him.' Sam ran his free hand distractedly through his hair. The stupid stories about sex curses had always been really varied and vague, except for how you cured them. But that was … Sam didn't want to go there. Not under these circumstances.

'Be careful, Sam,' Dean said, and hung up.

Sam shoved his phone back into his pocket, squared his shoulders, and went back into Kevin's room. 'Kevin -'

Kevin made a horrified noise and rolled back over, curling up like a millipede away from Sam, although it didn't hide that he'd kicked his sweatpants off entirely, or that the back of his t-shirt was soaked in sweat, and it really didn't do anything to wipe Sam's split-second visual of what Kevin had been doing kinda frantically when Sam walked in. 'Oh, Christ, sorry, I didn't -' Sam turned around to stare back out the door rather than at Kevin. 'Um. That's probably a good idea, actually. If you can treat the, uh, the symptoms that way, then -'

'It's not working,' Kevin said roughly. 'It just - God, it feels like it makes it worse.'

'Keep trying?' Sam suggested weakly.

'I heard you talking to Dean,' Kevin said. His voice was reedy, staccato like he was having to force each word out. 'This isn't gonna work, Sam.'

'We'll find something else, then,' Sam said, still staring fixedly at the far wall of the houseboat, where Kevin's research was all pinned up, too far away from him to read. 'There'll be something, there has to be.'

'If this is a sex curse,' Kevin huffed, and Sam could hear him moving around on the bed, 'then the only thing that's gonna help me is currently standing in the doorway.'

Sam turned. 'No,' he said, looking Kevin in the eyes, only the eyes. 'No, I won't -'

'You'd rather I died?' Kevin demanded. His mouth was bitten red, like he'd been trying to hold back noises. His eyes were wild, glassy. 'You'd rather watch me die than fuck me?'

'I can't just - it'd be taking advantage,' Sam said, although that sounded a shitload worse out loud than it had in his head. 'You can't - I can't do that to you. You don't want -'

'I want to live!' Kevin growled. He managed to sit up, to push himself up to look at Sam better, but it was clear how much effort it cost him. 'I want it to stop hurting, and I want my brain not to fry like an egg, and I don't have a lot of options here so, please, Sam.' He shrugged. 'I'm sorry if this is knocking you off your end of the Kinsey scale or whatever, but you gotta help a guy out here.'

Sam took a tentative step forward. Kevin was shaking now, the muscles in his arms were corded and standing out like rope just trying to hold his weight up, and his stare was blazing. 'I swear, I didn't know this was -'

'Doesn't matter,' Kevin growled. 'Sam. _Please_.'

The worst part was, something in Sam wanted to give in badly and it wasn’t the part of him that was altruistic. Part of him had wanted to take charge of this from the start, wanted to push Kevin down and fuck him, but he couldn’t be that person, not right now. Still, Kevin needed him in a bad way. Sam wanted to believe the curse wouldn’t kill him but, well, he’d read some things.

‘Please,’ Kevin said again, his voice almost a whimper now. He reached out for Sam and, damnit, there were tears in his eyes like at any moment he might start sobbing and Sam couldn’t, he just couldn’t. He was done.

He sat on the side of the bed slowly and Kevin curled into him as though acting on instinct, wrapping arms around him and burying his head in Sam’s stomach. Sam let him for a second before gently pushing him back so he could lean down and kiss him. He was going to do this right, he wasn’t going to hurt Kevin any more than he absolutely had to.

Kevin kissed back greedily, as though he could find the answers to all his needs between Sam’s lips. Hell, maybe right now he could. He was a mess, so hot that kissing him was like kissing a furnace. He grabbed at Sam desperately, as though he wasn’t sure how to hold, gripping here and there and then pulling away, writhing under Sam and pushing up against him. It was strange and desperate and intense, and Sam was already starting to get hard.

He pulled back and Kevin almost sobbed at the lack of contact - questing hands quickly burying in Sam's hair and trying to pull him back down.

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ Sam whispered against his lips and Kevin just groaned, forcing himself up to kiss Sam again.

It was hard not to lose it with Kevin latching on to him like that. He wanted to take control of this so badly, to push Kevin and pull him until he was in place. To fuck him, rough and demanding, until he screamed Sam’s name. He couldn’t, though. Not like this. Not with Kevin so desperate, with so much power taken from him already. Kevin had to lead this.

He ran his hands up Kevin’s sides and Kevin groaned, trying to grind up against him. Sam obliged, moving to lie over Kevin more fully and bringing his leg forward so Kevin could rut against his thigh. He was so close, Sam almost thought he might get away with this.

He tried to ignore his own dick for now, ignore the way having Kevin pinned under him writhing and needy felt somehow entirely right and instead focus on Kevin. He brought his hands down to grip Kevin’s hips, helping him rub himself against Sam’s leg. Kevin panted in his ear, needy words like 'please' and 'more' and 'Sam' and it wasn’t helping his self control at all.

It also didn’t help when Kevin apparently gained enough control over his own limbs to start pulling at Sam’s top, trying to get it off.

‘Hey,’ he said into Kevin’s neck. ‘It’s alright, we’re almost there.’

‘No,’ Kevin whispered, voice still as desperate as when they started. ‘Please, need to feel you.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sam asked, a little desperately. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to hold on with Kevin naked against his skin.

‘Please,’ Kevin whispered, staring up at Sam with glassy eyes, and what else could Sam do? He pulled back, yanking his shirt over his head and throwing it aside as Kevin made an effort to do the same with his. In the end he had to pull Kevin’s off himself before lowering them down, finally pressing their bodies to each other and Kevin almost sobbed with relief, clinging to him with legs and arms this time.

‘Kevin,’ Sam said, desperately, trying to keep him calm. The way they were pressed together, Kevin had to be able to tell how hard he was. Kevin moaned, mouthing at his neck and clinging like his life depended on it, which, well, it might.

‘Fuck me,’ Kevin moaned. ‘You have to, Sam. I need this.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sam asked.

‘Please just stop asking,’ Kevin groaned, digging a hand in Sam’s hair. ‘Just … just pick me up and fuck me. Please. It’s what I want.’

How the hell was Sam meant to resist that?

He pulled up quickly and sat, yanking Kevin with him to straddle his lap and Kevin, Kevin looked wild. He looked like he’d already been fucked, with his lips, and his hair, and Sam just couldn’t stand it. He let himself touch for the first time, really. Let himself run his hands over Kevin, over his arms and his stomach and his back. Let himself kiss him desperately, sucking bruises on to his neck as Kevin ground down against him.

'Come on, come on,' Kevin muttered into Sam's hair, and Sam had to stop and take a breath and concentrate, feeling dazed from heat and sensation, and slide one hand down from the small of Kevin's back to curve over his ass.

Kevin panted, open-mouthed, and pushed back. Sam let his fingers trail back, round, dipping in and listening to the tiny, hungry, pained noises in Kevin's throat. 'I gotta,' he said, mouth dry. 'I gotta get some -' he started, because no way, no way in Hell was he doing this dry, or unprotected, but he had no idea where to get what he needed, he wasn't carrying anything and while there might actually have been lube or condoms (probably condoms, maybe lube?) in the Impala, that was all the way back out of the houseboat, on land, and Kevin was clutching him like a limpet as if any sliver of space between them hurt him, and -

'Middle drawer,' Kevin growled, pained. 'Fucking _get it done_ -'

There was half a tube of lube in the drawer. No condoms. Sam looked down but Kevin wouldn't look back up at him. 'There's no -'

'I'm clean,' Kevin moaned. 'I haven't - fuck, just. I'm clean. I trust you. _Please_.' He rocked against Sam like he couldn't stop the motion of his own hips.

'This is a bad idea,' Sam muttered, squeezing cold lube out onto his fingers. 'God, this is such a bad idea.' But what goddamn choice did he have? He didn't think he had anything, but some diseases were asymptomatic, and he'd been cut and bled on so many times, and it's not like a regular checkup at the sexual health clinic had been high on his priorities for most of his life and … and he wasn't thinking about what Kevin hadn't done before. No.

You can get him checked out after, Sam told himself, warming the lube, running wet fingers over Kevin's skin to get him used to the feel of it. Most stuff can be cured. Just get him through it. Just let him live.

Just make it good for him, he ordered himself, letting the tip of a finger push home.

Kevin arched, widening his knees, settling into the stretch, and Sam let him control the speed, settled a hand on his hip and just let him move, biting his lip to keep himself, his urge to do this fast and hard and satisfying, under control. But soon Kevin was overheated and writhing again, muttering 'more' and 'hurts' and 'yeah', and Sam eased another finger in, another as well after Kevin started driving himself back against Sam's hand, but the need in Kevin's voice didn't wane, and Sam didn't know what to do, trying to steady Kevin before he tipped them both over sideways. 'What do you want?' he asked, pushing Kevin's hair out of his face, trying to get a look in his eyes.

'How many I times do I have to -?' Kevin panted. 'Just. Fuck. Me.'

Sam practically shuddered under him, because yes, he wanted, 'But -'

'Need it,' Kevin said. 'Can't breathe, Sam - slow hurts.' He shoved back, and back, over and over onto Sam's hand. 'Come _on_ ,' he said breathlessly, tilting his head to one side, licking at his bruised mouth.

Sam _felt_ his control snap.

He dragged his fingers out of Kevin, mostly - kept enough leverage to keep Kevin spread, and pulled him down, careful-slow-firm. Kevin dug his knees into the mattress and let Sam do it, made a hungry noise when the head of Sam's cock made contact, and went boneless, taking it beautifully, as he sank home.

‘God, Kevin,’ Sam breathed. He couldn’t help but watch as Kevin’s eyelids fluttered, soundless words spilled from his lips. The part of him that had wanted this all along couldn’t help but look on in satisfaction and declare _I did that._

‘Sam,’ Kevin whispered, his voice soft and raw. ‘Please. I need you.’

‘Yes,’ Sam growled without even meaning to. He curled his arms around Kevin and moved them quickly, depositing Kevin back on his back. Kevin wrapped his legs around Sam and for a few seconds Sam let his weight press down on Kevin, enjoying the feeling of the other man pinned beneath him, before he pulled back and finally started to do what Kevin asked him to do all along. Fuck him.

Kevin was loose under him. Lost entirely in the sensation, eyes half shut and the most wanton moans escaping from him, and it was like Sam couldn’t even think straight. Couldn’t even process what any of this meant. All that existed for him was here and now and Kevin lying below him on the mattress, opening for him and taking him and looking so ...

He came embarrassingly quickly, but he didn’t think Kevin would mind. Not when Sam collapsed on top of him and he groaned like he couldn’t get enough. Not when, with a few more thrusts against Sam’s stomach, Kevin finally came, and his fever broke.

***

Sam always recovered quickly from orgasm, which was something he really appreciated now. Kevin was spent and sleepy and a mass of clinging limbs, but Sam managed to slip his way out, leaving Kevin there and going. He gathered up everything he'd brought, and left.

He knew it wasn’t the most honourable thing, maybe. Maybe he should stay and own up to what he'd done, but with every mile he put behind him he couldn’t help thinking he’d made the right choice.

Kevin had said yes, of course, but only while in the grip of the damn curse. A curse that meant he couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to, and as much as Sam knew that what he’d done had saved Kevin’s life, he hated that he hadn’t found another way. Any other way. There had to be one. He’d created this mess, he should have known the entire thing was too easy. Grabbing the medallion right out from under Crowley’s nose? Nothing was ever that simple. If he’d just thought more ...

The medallion was in the trunk. In the curse box. They’d destroy it or store it, it didn’t matter. Kevin would never touch it again.

Kevin would never want to see him again.

Sam got that, he really did. What he’d done, well, maybe he’d done what had to be done. Maybe he could just make himself believe that, but it wouldn’t have been necessary if he’d just thought in the first place. And, even then, just because it was the only thing to do didn’t mean Kevin would ever want to see him again. Hell, he wouldn’t blame the guy if he hated him. He’d made such a mess of everything, it was entirely understandable.

He felt like the worst kind of person, leaving Kevin alone like this after his first time (his first time!), but he’d be worse if he stayed.

It was worse that he’d wanted to stay.

***

Dean was cleaning his gun. It's what he did when he had a moment's downtime, or when he needed to think, and this was a bit of both. His cellphone was out on the motel table in front of him, waiting for a call from Sam.

They shouldn't have been so goddamn quick to assume that something was gonna go their way for once. Since when had Crowley ever done anything but throw them curveballs? Red-hot, spiky curveballs. Hell, as soon as they'd known he was involved they should have backed down and thought this through.

Of course, when Dean had gone back into the museum to deal with him, Crowley was gone. Stunt Demon Number Three had still been there, but ganking him was just routine. It wasn't as if it was a game-changer. Dean had just been pleased that they'd managed to get one over on Crowley and maybe get Kevin a bit of an advantage at the same time.

And then Sam had called.

According to their original game-plan, Sam should have been here to pick him up again by now. Couple hours ago, actually. It was supposed to be a case of calling in, dropping off the medallion, pat on the shoulder, make sure the kid was eating actual food and not just Advil and coffee, and leave again. But now it was early afternoon.

Dean wasn't thinking about why Sam was late. Hopefully, Sam would have … got Kevin fixed up … and made sure he's okay, and then they would never have to think about, or talk about, the whole situation ever again. Dean could give him a couple hours' grace for that. Except of course, he reminded himself, racking the slide on the reassembled gun and half-smiling at how sweet she moved, that there was nothing in their lives that they could just never think about again.

Sam chose that moment to walk through the door of the motel room. He looked like he hadn't slept. Or eaten. Or caffeinated. He looked, actually, like not only had he kicked someone's puppy but he'd also run it over with a Mack truck and then thrown it to a lion or something.

Dean put the gun down. 'What happened? Is Kevin okay?'

'He'll live,' Sam said, but Dean did not like the way he said it. Not one bit.

'Talk to me, Sam. What happened?'

'What do you _think_ happened, Dean?' Sam snarled, turning away and slamming a hand flat on the wall like he wanted to punch it instead.

Dean stood up. 'I don't know,' he said carefully. 'But what I'm hoping happened is that you got a friend out of a bad situation the best way you knew how.'

He tried to put a hand on Sam's shoulder, but Sam shrugged him off, still not making eye contact. 'Doesn't make it right,' Sam said, under his breath. 'It was still - he was still impaired, Dean. He couldn't make a choice. He didn't _have_ a choice.'

'And what does he think? It's Kevin, Sam. Remember? Mister Logical and Intelligent? He'll know it was the only way to save his life. Did you talk to him?'

'He was asleep,' Sam said.

Dean squinted at him. 'Wait. You - after you … you just left him? Someone gets whammied by evil, you don't stick around to make sure they're okay when they wake up? Jesus, Sam. What the fuck were you thinking?'

'I was thinking, after that, he's never going to want to be in the same room as me ever again, let alone talk to me,' Sam said. 'I decided I'd … I dunno, spare him the trauma, I guess.'

'You fucking ran away,' Dean growled. 'Well, that's just great, Sammy. Well done. A+ compassion there.'

'What do you want me to do?' Sam demanded. 'Would you wanna be around someone who'd -'

'I'd expect you to at least tell him why you're going. I'd expect you to realise that maybe someone who's been thrown around the way Kevin has, abandoned by people who are supposed to be looking after him, _like Kevin has_ -' and Dean knew he was back on the subject of Sam giving up hunting, giving up on looking for him, again, but he didn't fucking care '- would rather not wake up alone in a goddamn houseboat after something like that! Did you leave a note, at least?'

Sam said nothing.

Dean grabbed his gun, swept the rest of his cleaning equipment into his duffle. 'Get back in the car.'

'What?'

'Garth needs you to do some reading for him. I'm going to drop you back at the Batcave.'

'And what are you gonna do?' Sam asked, although from the shamefaced, avoidant look on his face he already knew.

'Go clean up your goddamn mess,' Dean growled.

***

Kevin was focusing on the tablet and he was fine. He really was. Definitely. Why would he be anything else? He’d got what he’d asked for, after all. He’d survived. He even felt good. As much as he’d been able to expect anything, he would have expected to find himself exhausted. Limbs aching, that kind of thing. Only he didn’t. He actually physically felt good. Emotionally, on the other hand ...

It was just, he hadn't thought Sam would be the kind to up and leave after something like that. Sure, he got that Sam hadn’t wanted what had happened between them, it honestly hadn’t been on Kevin’s priority list either. It _had_ happened, though, and Kevin had kind of thought Sam might stick around, at least to check he was alright.

He hadn’t liked waking up alone. Not after his first time. Not after his first time went like that.

Not that Sam owed him anything. He knew he needed to thank Sam for saving his life, really. It would have just been nice to walk up next to someone. Even someone who was just there to make sure they had got rid of the curse and he’d made it through the night in one piece.

He’d thought he could rely on Sam this time, that things had changed. Big mistake.

So he was focusing on the tablet and not on anything else. His head still snapped up when he heard the familiar sound of the Impala pulling up. Not that he’d been listening just for that or anything but … maybe Sam had come back. Maybe he’d had something to do so he’d rushed off and now he’d come back so they could talk and make it right between them. Kevin tried, but he couldn’t stop himself standing up, edging towards the door.

Before he could even get around the table, the door to the house boat banged open and the wrong Winchester came down the steps. Kevin tried to bite back on his disappointment, stepping forward to meet Dean.

‘You alright?’ Dean asked, reaching out to grip Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin couldn’t help but blush a little at the idea that Dean knew exactly what had gone on last night, but managed to nod. Dean grunted and stepped back, dropping his hand.

‘I’m fine,’ Kevin said, shuffling off to sit down again. ‘No symptoms today.’

‘Good,’ Dean said, deflating a little and dropping in to the chair across from him. ‘Wanted to check up on you to be sure.’

‘Well, thanks for that,’ Kevin said with an awkward shrug. ‘Is … is Sam alright? I mean, we didn’t talk, so I didn't get a chance to ask. He was gone when I got up.’

‘I know,’ Dean said with a nod. ‘Don’t worry, I put him in his place about that. He’s got it into his head that you’re never going to want to see him again, after what happened.’

‘No,’ Kevin said with a disbelieving shake of his head. ‘I mean I’m not … that’s not something I ever imagined happening, but that’s not Sam’s fault. I mean, I’m kind of pissed that he left, but mostly I just want to talk to him, you know. Put it right.’

‘Good,’ Dean said, nodding quickly as though he could hurry the conversation along and avoid the chance of any more emotions. ‘He’s being an idiot, but I’ll let him know you said that. Let him know you’re alright too, it’ll make him feel better. You got anything new on the tablet?’

Kevin was glad to be able to focus on what he was meant to be focusing on again. He leaned over the tabletop and picked up his half of the tablet. 'I dunno,' he said, running his fingers over the incisions in the clay. 'I think I've found something about closing the gate, but … it's hard to read without the other half, y'know? I'm never quite sure I'm getting the whole picture until it clicks into place.'

'Yeah, well, you keep trying,' said Dean, clearly trying to hide disappointment and worry. 'We gotta get this thing sorted before Crowley catches up with us for good. He nearly got you yesterday. We gotta start stepping up our game.'

'I'm working on the translation as hard as I -'

Dean shook his head. 'No, not you, Kevin. Me and Sam. We dropped the ball, didn't do our due diligence before we chucked you a goddamn tactical Prophet-seeking nuke. We're not gonna let that happen again, I swear to you.'

Kevin put the tablet down and resisted the urge to thunk his head into the table. 'Can we be done with the blame game over that?' he said. 'Seriously. It doesn't help. Let's just … not talk about it any more. Let's concentrate on work, yeah?'

Dean smiled properly, for the first time since he'd come in. 'You're a man after my own heart, Kevin Tran. Okay. You need any fresh supplies, since I'm here?'


	2. First Trimester

Kevin's alarm was set for 5am. He hadn’t even got up that early when he was studying, but this was so much more important than studying. He knew that now every hour he slept was an hour Crowley got closer, so his alarm was set for 5am. That didn’t make getting up at 5am any more pleasant. He’d been wearing the same clothes for a few days now, maybe a week. It didn’t really matter and when he hit his alarm he realised, again, that he just didn’t have the energy to change them.

What did it matter? Another day all alone.

He headed out into the main room. Everything was where he left it. Good. He dreamt, sometimes, about demons breaking in and smashing the place up. It was all still there, though. His notes and diagrams. He made a pot of coffee mechanically, downing the first cup in a bid to wake himself up a little then drinking the second more slowly. He didn’t exactly want to savour the taste or anything but he’d been kind of … kind of not well, and he didn’t want to upset his system. He wished he could give up the stuff entirely but he knew that wasn’t likely. Not if he wanted to work.

He put on some music. It helped him focus, blocked out the rest of the world until it was just him and the tablet. The ridiculous blurred tablet. It was like he couldn’t even look at it when it was like this without his head aching.

Around nine the nausea started.

It had only been the last few weeks or so, and it had kind of come on suddenly, but he could set his clock by it. Creeping nausea, starting at nine and lasting for hours. Some days he threw up, some days he didn’t, but he could never focus when he felt like this. It was bad enough looking at the tablet with his head swimming without the nausea.

He put his headphones down as soon as it came on, picking himself up before it was too late, downing a couple of aspirin in the hope they might do something today and going off to the bedroom. He’d put a bucket there already, but it turned out this wasn’t a puking day. Instead he just lay there for hours, feeling his insides rebel. He hated it, hated that he was so useless. They were never going to find out how to shut the gates of Hell like this, he was never going to be able to go back to his old life.

He dozed a little, though never for long. It was a good day; the feeling started to fade at about eleven and by eleven thirty he was up again, back to the tablet until dinner. Hot dogs: the best Garth and the Winchesters could provide, apparently. He’d loved them before, but he guessed he'd reached the point of overexposure because he hated the thought of them now. Craved asparagus, of all things. He’d hated the stuff before but now he thought he’d kill for it.

He managed a few more hours staring at the tablet before he needed another couple of aspirin. He wished he could go longer, wished they helped more. His entire body ached. Weirdly, his chest ached the most at the moment. His nipples just hurt all the time, which was ridiculous. Probably his unwashed shirt, it probably rubbed or something. He kept having to run to the toilet too, but that was probably the coffee.

He should get off it, he really should. He hated it, like the hot dogs. Once he got out of here he was never drinking it again.

For now, though, he needed it.

By 2am his head hurt so much he could barely even see straight. His mouth tasted strange, almost metallic, and he finally gave up, setting the tablet carefully down and stumbling into the bedroom. He fell onto the bed, no energy to change, and was asleep in seconds.

Just another day.

***

Dean stuck his head into the library and said, 'Hey, you busy?' Sam looked up from the half-translated Latin he'd been poring over for the past day.

'What's up?'

Dean came in properly, hands shoved into his pockets. 'I thought I'd take Kevin another load of supplies, see if he's got anything yet. You wanna come with?'

It was clear he didn't actually expect Sam to say yes, so why was he even bothering to ask? Sam sighed. 'I'm kinda busy,' he said, shrugging.

Dean rolled his eyes. 'Come on, man, you seriously can't keep doing this.'

'Let it go, Dean.' Sam turned back to the Latin, because that was useful and on track.

Dean turned on his heel and walked out. 'Not me that needs to let go, Sam,' he said over his shoulder. 'I'll be back tomorrow.'

'Drive safe,' Sam said, maybe a bit more sarcastically than he should have, but he wanted Dean to go - get out of his space and go to Kevin. Making sure Kevin was okay was still right up at the top of Sam's priority list, but … no. He couldn't go himself.

Maybe Kevin hadn't freaked out, maybe he was claiming he was fine, whatever. Maybe Kevin _was_ doing okay, by some miracle - but that wasn't the point. It wasn't just … what Sam had done. He probably could just 'get over' that, or at least fake it well enough to get Dean off his back

But he couldn't stop thinking about it. Thought about Kevin in his arms, under him, thought about the noises, the heat, the way it could almost have been something they both wanted, something good, if it had happened naturally.

Sam laughed softly, because since when did his life ever involve things that happened naturally?

***

Kevin had to keep changing his cellphones - Garth would usually bring him burner phones every couple of weeks - so his mom didn't technically know his number, but he knew hers, off by heart, and she expected him to call pretty often. He couldn't see her - it would put them both in danger. She was living in a quiet suburb and 'grieving' for her 'legally dead' son, who'd gone missing without a trace. But he could call her, so he did.

'Hey, Mom,' he said when she picked up.

‘Kevin,’ she answered sharply. ‘Where on earth have you been? I’ve been waiting for you to call!’

‘Sorry, Mom,’ he groaned, letting his head drop into his palm. ‘I swear, I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve just got a lot going on at the moment, that’s all.’

‘I know,’ his Mom said, and he could almost hear the frustration in her tone. ‘It’s just ... I just like to know you’re safe. You could really be dead and I’d never even know.’

‘I’m pretty sure Sam and Dean would tell you if I died,’ he said with a smile. He could just imagine her sitting in her kitchen somewhere worrying about him while she got on with life. He liked that about her, hoped he’d inherited it; her skill for just getting on with things.

‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘How is your work going? Are you any closer?’

‘Kind of,’ Kevin said, glancing at his wall of notes. It wasn’t a lie, he was kind of closer. Maybe not as close as he’d like yet, but kind of closer.

‘And are you taking care of yourself?’ she asked. ‘Sleeping and eating right? You need to take care, Kevin.’

‘I’m trying,’ he offered, running a hand through his hair. ‘It’s just … it’s really difficult right now. I think I’m coming down with something.’

‘Why, what’s wrong?’ she asked, voice sharp. He couldn’t help but smile, this was why he phoned. Today … today hadn’t been a good day. He’d thought about calling Dean, but his solution seemed to be to bring more aspirin and leave, and Kevin was pretty sure that stuff wasn’t helping right now. He’d just wanted to tell someone, to get a little sympathy.

‘It’s probably just a flu,’ he started. ‘But I’ve just … I’m just really tired, Mom. Everything aches, especially my chest. But nothing tastes right, I don’t want to eat any of my favourite foods any more, and I keep being sick. Like, every morning. And my mouth always tastes funny, like I’ve been putting metal in it.’

‘Sounds like you’re pregnant,’ his Mom joked, and Kevin grinned as she laughed. At least that was one thing he didn’t have to worry about. ‘When I had you, the morning sickness was terrible. Every morning, same times, for hours. Just this nausea. Then, like that, it would just clear up then come back same time the next morning, it was ridiculous. The midwife said it was weird, too. But, for you, it sounds like you need to eat more vegetables, Kevin. I bet you’re not having a healthy diet. And get those Winchesters to bring you something for your nausea, some soda water or something.’

‘I will, Mom,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s nothing.’

‘Me too,’ she agreed. ‘Just … just take care of yourself, Kevin. I want you back when all this is over.’

‘I will,’ he promised. ‘I’ll phone again soon.’

‘You'd better.’

She hung up on him and he let the phone drop with a sigh. He’d text Dean later about anti-nausea medicine and vegetables. It was probably just a vitamin thing. It was weird though, how similar his sickness was to his mom’s morning sickness. He was pretty glad he wasn’t a girl, given that the timing since he and Sam … well, it was about right.

But it wasn’t possible.

Definitely not possible. Some weird things had happened to him but this was a basic fact of biology. He could _not_ be pregnant. He clearly needed to get out into the real world more, and he would as soon as he was finished with this ridiculous tablet.

He put on his headphones and picked the tablet back up, determined to focus while the nausea wasn’t bothering him.

***

Dean was passing through the last decent-sized town before he got to Garth's houseboat when his phone pinged a text-alert. He scrambled for it in his pocket, trying not to take his eyes off the road. Probably Sam, anyway, hopefully saying he'd made a breakthrough on the Latin of those half-translated prophecies the Men of Letters seemed to have been so overexcited about.

Getting his phone free, he looked down at it. UNKNOWN NUMBER, it blinked at him.

 _hey dean,_ the text said. _dunno when you're next gonna be in my area but could you pick up some veges and something for nausea? thanks. Kevin_

Dean looked up in time to see that he was about to pass a supermarket, so he pulled in, still kind of staring at the text. Vegetables, sure, Kevin had about the same dietary hangups as Sam, so that made some kind of sense, but nausea meds? He didn't like the sound of that. Better check.

Kevin picked up the phone pretty quickly after a couple of rings. 'Dean?' he said, sounding kinda rough.

'You alright?' Dean asked, trying for casual, but unable to stop the faint alarm bells ringing in the back of his head. 'You're sick?'

'Uh, yeah, just a dose of flu or something. Having trouble keeping my food down, and that means I can't take the painkillers, and you know, vicious cycle and all. Mom keeps telling me how much worse she had it when she was pregnant with me,' Kevin joked weakly. 'Y'know, keeping me humble, I guess. It's no big deal.'

'I'm on my way to you now,' Dean said, getting out of the Impala. 'You said vegetables - any specific kind? Rabbit food's not really my area, dude.'

In the end he picked up a couple bags of carrots, lettuce, tomatoes … salad stuff, and some fruit, basically - anything that looked like it'd be easy to prepare or would keep a while. He stopped in the medicine aisle and grabbed antacids and whatever else specified nausea on the box, and then he paused, looking down at some of the more … discreetly-placed … items.

This was fucking stupid. But the concept kept nagging at him.

'Better just get it ruled out,' he muttered to himself, and picked up the pregnancy test.

***

Dean turned up sooner than Kevin had expected, mid-afternoon, when Kevin had only texted him mid-morning.

'That was fast,' Kevin said, forcing himself to smile and be as normal as he could manage when his body basically wanted him to go get horizontal again and possibly throw up, too.

'I was already on my way,' Dean said, shrugging. He held up a supermarket bag. 'Got you a few things,' he said, already heading into the kitchen. 'Mostly your rabbit food, some meds.' Kevin followed him, picking his way through the piles of paper and notes he'd been building across the floor since the table was getting too small. 'Also this,' Dean said when Kevin made it to the kitchen doorway, holding up a small box and not making proper eye contact.

Kevin's stomach dropped (even further) when he saw what it was. Because if he wasn't the only person having that suspicion …

'Please tell me that isn't what it looks like,' he said, leaning against the doorframe. 'Dean, I'm a guy.'

'You'd be amazed how unfussy some witches can be,' Dean said, shrugging again like that was somehow a useful explanation. 'Or how persistent magic is.'

'I _can't_ be pregnant.'

Dean held out the box. 'Then this'll come up negative and we've ruled it out, yeah?' Kevin could already tell he wasn't going to get out of this, stupid though the whole concept was. 'And while you do that, I'm gonna call Sammy -'

'- no, don't -' Kevin interrupted, because no, he didn't want Sam to know this was even being thought of. All he'd wanted on the whole subject, like he kept telling Dean every time he saw him, was for it to get dropped. Dean said Sam was just busy, working on translations and things to give Kevin stuff to cross-reference to the tablet, and yeah, he always did turn up with bundles of Sam's latest work, but it didn't take a genius to work out why, since the medallion incident, it was only ever Dean that came round to see how Kevin was doing.

'- to ask him if he can dig up anything else on the whole 'guy pregnancy scare' thing,' Dean finished, raising an eyebrow. 'What?'

'You don't think he'll put two and two together about why you might be asking?' Kevin said. 'He's clearly already freaked out enough about me, Dean - I don't buy all this 'too busy' bullshit. How's he gonna react if you put it in his head that he's … I dunno, got me pregnant, or whatever? It's ridiculous, and you're only going to make everything worse. I'll take the stupid test, sure, but don't call him.' He snatched the box out of Dean's hand.

'Okay,' said Dean, looking at Kevin with an expression he couldn't read. 'Sure. Whatever you want.'

Kevin stalked off to pee on a stick and pretend he wasn't apprehensive about the outcome.

***

Three hours later, there were a few more boxes littered around.

'It has to be a false positive,' said Kevin, staring at the stick. Sticks. Dean had had to go out on a second shopping trip.

'Pretty sure if you could get five false positives in a row, someone would have sued the pharmaceutical company by now,' Dean said, muffled because his face was buried in his hands. 'Can I call Sam now?'

'No, this doesn't make sense,' Kevin said. 'I don't have a uterus, man, I don't - this actually makes no physiological sense.'

'Magic,' said Dean, looking up at him and shrugging. 'Dude, I've seen people turn into dogs. Whole body transmogrification. Take 'em to a vet, they can't tell the difference. I've seen shapeshifters. I've seen beating hearts inside _cupcakes_. You trying to tell me that a person being magicked to grow one extra organ is suddenly the line I have to believe is uncrossable?'

'How did it even -'

'First piece of advice,' Dean said, reaching across the table to pat him on the shoulder, 'is the logistics are gonna give you an even worse headache than the one you've already got.'

Kevin glared at him. 'Men can't get pregnant, Dean.'

'Yeah, and vampires are all soulful and fall in love with teenage girls. Dragons are myths. There's no such thing as fairies. Now that we've dealt with that, I'm calling Sam.'

‘No just ... just wait,’ Kevin said, reaching over to grab Dean’s wrist. It was all too much, to be expected to believe this. He couldn’t be, maybe guys always just came out positive on pregnancy tests? It had to be something like that because this was not happening. It couldn’t. How was he even meant to ...

‘How the hell do I get it out of me?’ he asked, squeezing Dean’s arm. ‘Can’t we just … just … I need this to not be happening, Dean.’

‘I know,’ Dean assured him. ‘Look, this is why I need to phone Sam. There might be a solution. At least we can find out what you should expect to happen. We’ve got to research, though, and Sam’s better at that than I am.’

‘He’s never going to speak to me again,’ Kevin said, and dammit but he was shaking a little now. This was happening. Actually happening in real life and not just in his head. ‘My mom's going to kill me. I can’t do this.’

‘Look,’ Dean said, prying his arm free. ‘Just, just calm down, alright? Your mom loves you, she's gonna be fine. And Sam … Sam’s an idiot but he’s not going to abandon you, I’m not going to let him. We can fix this, you’re just going to have to calm down. Kevin, worse shit’s happened and we’ve made it alright. We can make this alright too.’

‘I can’t even go to a doctor,’ Kevin whispered, falling back into his chair. ‘They’d think I was insane, a freak of medical science. But what if it’s dangerous? What if I don’t have a uterus and it’s somehow just lodged in me? What if it’s killing me and that’s why I feel so shitty?’

‘I’m pretty sure the feeling shitty has more to do with the not eating right and not sleeping,’ Dean said with a sigh. ‘Look, we _need_ to phone Sam. He won’t talk to you already, so it’s not like this can make things worse, right? He’ll find a way to reverse whatever the hell’s happened to you and we can get on with life. Then nobody’ll need a doctor and everything will be fine.’

‘Alright,’ Kevin agreed finally. Dean was right, he just … he just couldn’t think. Couldn’t even get his head around the idea. Pregnant. It was never a thing that should apply to him, never like this.

His mom really was going to kill him.

***

Sam marked his place carefully and picked up his phone, answering when he saw Dean’s name flashing on the screen. He’d almost got these translations down, they looked like they might even be helpful for Kevin. He really wanted to be able to give the guy some concrete help, on at least one front.

‘What’s up?’ he asked, standing up to stretch while he talked. Might as well take a break while he could.

‘Hey,' said Dean, sounding stressed and urgent. 'I kind of need you to research something for me. It’s important, forget the translations for now.’

‘Alright,’ Sam agreed. It had to be something pretty urgent if Dean wanted him to drop the translations. They both knew how important they might be. ‘Hit me.’

‘I need you to look up male pregnancy,’ Dean said. ‘Like, actual accounts of magically-induced male pregnancies and, well, ways of ending them. Or how they ended naturally. Outcomes, anyway.’

‘Alright,’ Sam said, slowing up a little. ‘You’re at Kevin’s, right?’

A pause. ‘Yes.’

Oh no. No no no. ‘Dean ...’

‘Just … do the research. I’ll come pick you up, I’m not the person you need to talk to about this.’

‘Dean ...’

‘No, I’ve had about enough of this shit. Kevin almost didn’t let me call you because he was scared of what you might think. You need to talk this out, so I’m going to come and pick you up and you’re going to talk to him, alright?’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, his throat suddenly dry. There had to have been a mistake. There had to have been, because there was no way Kevin could be pregnant. Not to him. He just … they hadn’t used protection. But Kevin was a guy. How was he meant to know? Sure, it was a sex curse but … shit, what if it wasn’t a sex curse?

He hung up on Dean, dropped his phone and hurried back to the storeroom where the curse box was sat on a shelf. He pulled it down and reached in for the medallion, careful to only touch the cloth it was wrapped in. He laid it on the floor and pulled the cloth back gently. The thing was old, the surface worn from years of storage, but he could still make out some symbols on it and, fuck, he was right. He was such an idiot, this was all his fault. If he’d only thought to look earlier, if he’d only looked at the damn thing before he’d taken it anywhere near Kevin.

It wasn’t a sex curse, it was a _fertility_ curse.

***

By the time Dean made it back to the batcave, his legs had started cramping from the long stretches of driving. He staggered inside, hoping to be able to get at least a couple of hours lying flat on his blessedly comfortable mattress, only to come face to face with Sam, who looked like he'd been yanking his own hair out by its roots.

The big map table was covered in open books, falling on top of each other as Sam had clearly opened them, read parts, and tossed them aside if they didn't help. There was a small but heavy-looking pile off to one side, though, with a battered and familiar curse box on top of it.

'You're not planning on bringing that, are you?' Dean asked, plopping himself down in a chair and shrugging his jacket off.

'I need to try and figure out what the spellwork etched on it actually specifies,' Sam said, fidgeting. 'I should have done that _first_ -'

'Yeah, well, shoulda coulda woulda,' Dean growled. He'd had enough of freakouts to last a century. 'Go get your head down, Sam, I wanna be back on the road by early morning, but I'm not driving any more tonight. My spine's in knots.'

Sam stood in the middle of the floor, almost twitching with indecision or something like it. Dean heaved himself back up to his feet and grabbed Sam by the shoulder, steering him to his room. 'Sleep, Sam. Or at least play the blame-game while you're horizontal.'

Sam blinked at him. 'Have I ruined his life?' he said, and Dean's heart _hurt_ for him.

'Being a prophet probably ruined his life first,' Dean said, because he had to say something to snap Sam out of it. He kept pushing Sam towards his bed. 'Crowley did most of the rest. None of Kevin's crap is on you, Sam.'

'But I should have -'

Dean shoved Sam down to sit on his mattress, kept ahold of his shoulders and fixed him with the best big-brother expression he knew. 'You _didn't know_ , Sam. You did your best, and you saved his life. We are going to sort this out, okay? All three of us, we're gonna work together and get it sorted. And there's plenty worse things in the world than a pregnancy, alright?'

Sam nodded jerkily. 'Yeah.'

'You gotta get your head back in the game, Sam. I need you to help me out here - Kevin's gonna need us to keep looking after him. He's still got all this prophet crap hanging over him and a tablet to translate, remember, and he's the only one who can do it. So you and me, we have to figure out the pregnancy thing.'

Sam pulled away from Dean a little. 'Yeah,' he said again, a bit stronger. 'I know. I'm sorry, Dean, I just -'

'I know. Get some sleep, Sammy. We've got work to do tomorrow.'

***

Kevin couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid pregnancy tests. He’d thrown them all out, as if not looking at them would mean he wouldn’t know what they’d said. After half an hour of lying in bed trying not to think about it he’d done the only thing he could think of to do, he’d got up and started working on the tablet. It was familiar, at least, and after a while he could block out all the other shit and let the tablet consume all his attention.

It was like the worst puzzle, like searching for a tiny detail in a giant pixelated mess or staring at one of those magic eye puzzles where you could see a 3D picture if you looked at it in just the right way. He’d always been terrible at those.

He stared, he drank coffee, he lost himself in music. Then, out of nowhere, a word formed in his head. He rushed to grab a piece of paper, scribbling it down before it went again and tore his headphones off, rushing to the notice board to pin the piece in place.

Trials.

Three trials.

And suddenly it made sense. The whole damn thing made sense where it hadn’t made any sense yesterday and he’d done it. It wasn’t all there yet but an outline, a start, and surely all the rest would fall in once he had the outline. He’d cracked it! He reached up, rubbing a hand across his face and he just had time to register that it came away with blood on it before the world was slipping away.

***

Dean had to lead the way into the houseboat. Sam was still acting like he was walking on hot coals, and he'd barely said a word the whole drive down. Moping. Dean should have been used to the moping, given it had been Sam's default mode for a good portion of his life, but he apparently still wasn't quite there yet.

'Kevin?' he called from the doorway, after their heavy knocking hadn't got any response. 'Kevin, it's Dean. And Sam.' He really thought that one might at least garner a yelp of denial or something, but no. Nothing. Silence, in fact, which was downright unsettling. 'Kevin,' he said, raising his voice.

'Something's wrong,' said Sam, low and urgent, and he pushed past Dean into the main room of the boat. 'Oh, crap,' he said, stooping down when he got past the big table. 'Kevin? Kevin -' Dean rounded the table himself.

Kevin was passed out on the floor, face smeared in blood, and Sam had apparently forgotten that he was convinced Kevin would never want to see him again because he'd dropped to his knees and pulled Kevin's head into his lap. 'Dean, this is bad,' he said, brushing hair out of Kevin's face and back behind his ear, checking for head wounds.

'Yeah, I'm getting that,' Dean said, making for the kitchen and wetting a handful of paper towels to make a compress. 'We should move him into his room,' he called back out to Sam.

'Yeah,' said Sam, distractedly. 'He's not coming round.'

'What do you bet he's just catching up on some sleep,' Dean said, trying to joke. He went back into the main room, meaning to go help Sam lift Kevin, but by the time he got there, Sam had him in his arms already, like he was asleep. 'You alright, Sam? Need a hand?'

'I got him,' said Sam, turning away and striding off to Kevin's room, the prophet cradled against his chest.

Awful protective there, Sammy, Dean mused. He followed his brother, wondering if maybe, just maybe, there might be something salvageable in this clusterfuck after all.

***

Kevin woke up in his room, which wasn't where he remembered … uh, passing out. Crap.

He unpeeled his face from his pillow and looked up. Dean and Sam were leaning in the doorway. Dean had his arms folded over his chest - Sam was looming in the background.

'Hi, guys,' Kevin said weakly.

The didn’t say anything, which probably meant it was more serious than he’d like. Dean stepped into the room and Sam moved closer to the door, not crossing into the room proper though, as if he thought he was still meant to be keeping his distance. Too late for that. Far, far too late.

Dean laid a hand on his forehead and Kevin forced himself to look away from Sam to smile what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Dean didn’t seem to be paying much attention to where Kevin was looking, though - he just grunted and drew his hand back.

‘How long was I out?’ Kevin asked, shifting uncomfortably. He might be avoiding looking at Sam, but he could feel Sam watching him.

‘We don’t know,’ Dean grumbled. 'We’ve been here a couple of hours. Want to tell us what you were doing to pass out?’

‘Working,’ Kevin said with a raised eyebrow. It wasn’t like he really did anything else around here. He worked and he ate and he slept, and occasionally he got cursed and made everything awkward for everyone. ‘I finally made some progress, I think. You want to see? Just let me get some coffee ...’

‘Should you really be drinking coffee?’ Sam asked, worry in his voice. Kevin snorted.

‘I'm a grownup, I can do what I like. Come on.’ He swung out of bed, bit his cheek against the brief dizziness, though from the worried look Sam and Dean exchanged it hadn’t gone unnoticed, and led them through to the main room. He turned the coffee maker on and then walked round to the wall of research.

‘Alright,’ Kevin said, standing back and gesturing. ‘I don’t have all the details yet, but I should have enough for you to make a start. To close the gates of Hell someone, just one person, has to complete a series of three tasks.’

‘We can do tasks,’ Dean said, clapping Kevin firmly on the shoulder. ‘The tablet tell you what they are?’

‘Not all of them yet,’ Kevin admitted. ‘Though I think the others should slot into place faster now I have the overall picture, and, also, once we take care of this little problem that’s making me throw up every morning, everything should come right, right?’

‘We’ll get to that,’ Dean agreed. Sam didn’t say anything, and Kevin still didn’t look at him. What was the point? Sam had decided they weren’t having anything to do with each other any more, so he didn’t need Sam for this.

Kevin pointed at the scribbled notes he'd made before he kind of passed out. ‘So, the first task is to kill a hellhound and bathe in its blood.’

‘Well, we can do that,’ Dean said with a grin. ‘I mean, it’s not going to be easy or anything but … I was kind of expecting something worse.’

‘You haven’t seen the other ones yet,’ Kevin said with a grin of his own. ‘But it’s a start.’

‘Alright,’ Dean said, stepping back. 'So. We've got task one … kinda sorted. You're working on task two?'

'Sure,' said Kevin, because, uh, yes? As if he'd be doing anything else - as if he had anything else to do. He was keeping half an ear pricked for the sound of the coffee machine coming to the boil, because he needed fuel, although he was feeling pretty good after the sleep he'd had. Maybe passing out wasn't the healthiest way to get it, but it worked.

In turning to head back to the kitchen, though, Kevin accidentally caught a glimpse of Sam, and had to stop himself from staring.

In the time since … well, _since_ … Kevin had decided Sam was angry with him. Or that he was disgusted, with Kevin or with what they'd done, or that he was just sick and tired of Kevin in general. And okay, all of those things seemed at least kinda unlikely, but … what other explanation could there really be? They'd been forced into the worst kind of situation, and it didn't matter, Kevin kept telling himself, it didn't matter that he'd needed it, that he hadn't hated it, that something perverse in his head actually kind of liked it - at least after the fear had waned and all that was left was the burning heat and how Sam's touch soothed it - what mattered was that Sam hadn't had a choice, because Kevin hadn't had a choice.

Neither of them could have said no, which means neither of them really said yes, and Kevin didn't blame Sam for wanting to get as far away as he possibly can.

But it didn't stop Kevin from having thought about the good parts, because goddammit he was only human and he couldn't say he hadn't _looked_ before the whole sex-curse incident, and during … well, it was probably partly how the whole thing was engineered but it there had definitely _been_ good parts.

And right then, looking at Sam looking at him, Kevin didn't see the anger or disgust or exasperation he'd expected and feared. Sam was watching him like he was afraid Kevin was going to explode or attack or something, leaning on his back foot and clearly ready to run, but … like he didn't want to go unless he was pushed. He was watching Kevin like he was taking notes in his head, cataloguing something.

Kevin was a scholar, of a really weird goddamn sort, but still. He studied things, or people, or mostly ancient languages these days, but still. He didn't like the idea that it was him being scrutinised, that someone was trying to decipher him.

He went and got his coffee, sliding away from under Sam's gaze.

***

Kevin went back to the tablet, but the Winchesters didn’t leave. They hauled in a load of books and settled in around the table with him to read. He tried not to think about what they were researching or why the curse box they’d carried in looked familiar. Instead he focused on the challenges. Turned out that knowing he was looking for the second trial didn’t make the thing spring out at him.

He’d managed to mostly block out, well, everything, when he started to feel the familiar tightening in his gut. Great, just great. He set the tablet down with a thunk and let his head fall on the table.

“Kevin?” Dean said, alarm in his voice. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Kevin grunted, shifting. “I’m just … I think I need to go lie down for a bit.”

“That doesn’t sound like alright to me,” Dean said, and Kevin heard his chair scraping back. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you think’s wrong?” Kevin spat. “I have … I have morning sickness. This is so ridiculous. I just need to go lie down for a couple of hours and it’ll pass.”

He risked a look up then and the expression on Dean’s face was priceless. His mouth hung open just a little, like he was caught in the middle of a thought, and when he realised Kevin was looking he snapped his jaw closed and flushed a little. Good. Kevin knew none of it was Sam’s fault but he couldn’t help but want both of them to feel just as uncomfortable as he did.

“Is … is that normal?” Sam asked. Kevin glanced over and he looked worried, forehead creased and a frown on his face.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Kevin insisted, pushing himself up. “My mom says she was just like this when she had me, I just need to lie down in the quiet for a while.”

“Can we get you anything?” Dean asked, looking down uncomfortable with the entire thing. Kevin didn’t blame him, he wasn’t exactly comfortable with it either.

“No, I have a system,” he said with a shrug. “Just let me know if you leave, it’s weird when people drift in and out when I’m not there to see it.”

Dean nodded and Kevin headed off to his room, intentionally shutting the door behind him. He knew they wanted to help and, well, that was a good thing. He just needed them to help by having them finish those books and work out what on earth was going to happen to him, not by hovering and following him around.

Typically, it turned out to be a bad day for morning sickness. Good days he felt like crap but, hey, sometimes he didn’t even throw up and it only lasted a few hours. Kevin wasn’t sure how long it was before a Winchester dared to open his door but he’d been sick six times, dry heaving into a bucket, and he felt like he’d run a marathon. His shoulders ached, his head ached, and he couldn’t find it in him to protest when someone laid a cool cloth against his forehead.

“Is it always this bad?” A voice asked, pitched thankfully low, and Kevin opened his eyes to confirm that it was Sam standing over him.

“No,” he mumbled, shifting a little and reaching up to touch the towel. “This is … this really sucks.”

“I know,” Sam said. He reached over and brushed Kevin’s hand away, lifted the cloth and felt his forehead. It must have been alright because after a second he replaced the cloth and took his hands away again.

'You don't have to do this,' Kevin said, wishing he could sit up at least. He hated feeling like an invalid.

There was a pause. Kevin knew Sam was still in the room, but he didn't say anything for a long moment, long enough to be unsettling. Then, 'It's just a cold compress,' Sam said, and Kevin didn't need to see him to know he was shrugging.

'Well, thanks,' said Kevin awkwardly. 'Are you guys heading off or something?'

'No, we're staying,' Sam said, as if he was surprised Kevin was asking. 'Til we work out what's going on here, it's more efficient to stick together.'

Kevin guessed that was sensible. He twitched at the corners of the wet towel, thinking about flipping it over. He wished he was more goddamn use, even despite the morning sickness. He couldn't seem to get a handle on the section of the tablet that had the second task on it, but the logistics of the first task still needed work. He wished his brain would just cooperate.

'I should get back out there,' said Sam after another moment. 'Dean probably -'

'Yeah, sure,' said Kevin hurriedly. 'Go. I'm good.'

'Try and get some sleep,' Sam advised him, stilted and soft, just before the bedroom door shut.

Kevin did flip the compress. And weirdly, he did manage to get some sleep, too.

***

Kevin woke up to the smell of something deep fried and was pretty damn glad when he realised his insides had stopped rebelling enough that crawling out of bed and investigating the smell seemed like an awesome idea. He rolled out of bed, took the time to shrug out of his t-shirt and find one that smelt a little less foul, and went back out.

Sam and Dean looked up together, like they expected him to stumble out bleeding everywhere and dying and, well, maybe he hadn’t actually been making a great impression lately. The truth was he felt great for a little extra time in bed.

'Please tell me you brought me some of what you’re eating,' he said, stepping into the room. He stopped to check they hadn’t moved his notes while Dean retrieved a styrofoam container from a plastic bag.

'Cheeseburger and fries,' Dean said, handing the box over. 'There’s a salad in there too for, you know, health.' He wrinkled his nose at the last word as though it caused him physical offense. Kevin just grinned and tucked into his cheeseburger. It was too greasy and he knew it was going to sit heavy in his stomach later but right now it seemed like the best thing he’d ever tasted. He caught Sam casting him glances a few times as he ate and finally conceded to eat a few of the leaves in his box too. Sam smiled and Kevin counted it as a win.

‘Alright,’ Dean said finally as Kevin was finishing the last few fries. ‘Want to know what we found out while you were playing Sleeping Beauty?’

‘Sure,’ Kevin said, dropping the box and leaning forward. Dean gave Sam a look and Sam blushed, dragging a text closer to him and staring determinedly at the pages.

‘Well, we’ve checked a few of the books and most of the cases of male pregnancy seem to be, well, illusion or something but we don’t think that’s what’s going on here. I’ve had the medallion out and translated it - it’s a fertility medallion. We think it was made to help women who couldn’t conceive. This thing, it’s meant to be a blessing, not a curse. But we only got through about a quarter of the books. We can leave the rest here until we can get back.’

‘You’re going?’ Kevin asked, and dammit he wished he didn’t sound so desperate but all this didn’t sound so horrible when he had the Winchesters here. They had a way of approaching this where it just didn’t seem as scary, as insurmountable.

‘Yeah,’ Dean admitted, looking a little uncomfortable. ‘While Sam was reading I did some hunting for a hellhound. I think, well, there’s a town not too far from here and three of its incredibly successful inhabitants died in the last four days. There are a few more in their group, the bodies were apparently torn apart, we can’t pass up a chance like this.’

‘No, it sounds good,’ Kevin agreed. ‘Well not … you know what I mean. You should go.’

‘Thanks, Kevin. Don’t you stress yourself out with these books.’

‘I won’t, Mom,’ Kevin said, rolling his eyes. ‘I’ll eat my greens and get some sleep.’

‘You’d better,’ Dean said with a smirk. ‘You’ve got another generation of Winchesters in there to look after now. Thinking of, you two want a chance to talk before we head out?’ He was trying really hard, Kevin could tell. All three of them were varying degrees of weirded out about this whole shitty situation, but at least Dean was trying. 

Kevin tried to ignore the way his gut tightened when Dean talked about the … thing. It wasn’t a baby or a new Winchester or whatever. It was a parasite, one he didn’t have time for. And he was going to get rid of it as soon as he could. That was all.

‘It’s alright,’ he said before Sam could think of anything to say. ‘You go do this, we’ll talk when you get back.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Dean said, but Sam looked about ready to bolt and Kevin nodded. Within five minutes he was alone again. Just him, a tablet, and a ton of books.

***

Dean finished checking his supplies in the Impala's trunk, and shut it. Sam was already in the passenger's side - he'd ducked in there as soon as they'd said goodbye to Kevin, like he was hiding or something, and Dean was just about done with this bullshit.

'You know, you're going to be a father,' he said when he got into the car, almost before he'd closed his door. 'You didn't find a single reference to a way to get rid of this baby without killing the person it's in. Kevin's going to have your goddamn baby, Sam. You can't run from that forever.'

'He doesn't want that baby,' Sam said, almost low enough that the Impala's engine starting drowned him out. 'So you can stop referring to it as the 'next generation of Winchesters' - if he manages to carry it to term there's no guarantee he'll keep it, and if he wants to adopt it out, I'll do everything I can to help him.'

Dean pulled out onto the main road away from the houseboat, having to bite his lip to stop himself yelling at his brother. 'Do _you_ want the baby?' he asked instead, slinging a sidelong glance at Sam. 'You said he doesn't want it - okay, fine, he's a kid. I get that. But you, Sammy?' Dean took a breath and tried a long shot. 'What if this is your opportunity to -'

'To what? Have a family? I've _got_ a family, Dean - I've got you. And we've got work to do - we can't just dump a baby in the middle of all this supernatural crap.'

'Our grandparents did,' Dean pointed out.

Sam said nothing.

'Well, whatever. We'll work out what happens to the baby when it comes, I guess,' Dean said, because it was clear he wasn't getting anything else out of Sam on that front. 'But Kevin is still carrying your goddamn child, so you could stop treating him like he's got a disease. He needs your support.'

Sam's fists clenched. 'What more do you want me to do?' he asked.

'I dunno, talk to the guy? I'm not talking about The Talk, Sam, just, like, regular talking. Maybe try and get him to stop drinking so much goddamn coffee, that would be a start. Act like you give a damn that your friend is working his butt off to help you while he's as sick as a dog, maybe?'

'I'm trying,' said Sam tightly. 'You think I like seeing him like this, Dean? I just ... I don't want to spook him either.'

Dean thought back to the way Kevin's eyes somehow always seemed to find Sam even when he was talking to Dean, and how much they sounded like each other when they were making their lame-ass excuses. 'He's not spooked,' Dean said. 'He thinks _you're_ spooked. Treading on eggshells around him's getting us nowhere fast, Sam.'

Sam looked at Dean with a hopeless expression, and Dean gave up, for now.

'So, we need anything special to kill a hellhound?' he asked awkwardly instead.

'Knife ought to do it,' Sam said, visibly relaxing. 'Going to need special glasses in order to see the damn thing, though.'

Dean wished he could make the atmosphere in the houseboat change back to normal that fast.

***

Sam poured holy oil on a patch of cracked tarmac and set it alight. He waved a couple of pairs of crappy second-hand reading glasses through the flames, and while he didn't exactly pray, he did hope like hell that this was going to work. Right now, he could really go for some righteous hellhound-killing, and that was going to be a lot easier if they could see the fricking thing.

Dean was off sweet-talking the local heiress about Mommy's potential demon deals. He'd told Sam his head was too far out of the game to be allowed near the civilians, so Sam was on equipment-prep. Demon-vision goggles done, he moved onto sharpening the knives, deep in thought.

Who the hell was Dean to get on his case about starting a family? He thought they'd both proved, multiple times, that Winchesters and family life weren't exactly a winning combination. And anyway, Sam had _tried_. He'd had a girl, a dog, a goddamn house, everything, and ... well, for a start, he'd been miserable, and for another thing, it had been Dean that yanked him away from it.

They couldn't just suddenly take on a baby and play happy families. How the hell was that ever going to work? Sam was damned if he was going to raise another Winchester soldier.

He ran the knife blade along the steel, back and forth. It was kind of soothing.

Kevin wouldn't want to raise a soldier, either. He'd had a good, normal childhood. He had a mom, a suburban house, a stable education. He'd want something like that for his child, wouldn't he? Not that he'd be able to give it to that child. Without a 'mother' ... god, the paperwork.

Sam's hands almost slipped, almost ruined the edge he was putting on his blade, realising that this child was always going to be under the radar, always going to be on the run. Maybe even adoption, or at least, legal adoption, would be impossible.

This was why he couldn’t have anything good in his life. The kid hadn’t even been born yet and he’d ruined everything.

Maybe it would almost be better if Kevin did find a way to get rid of it, but something in him hurt just at the idea. Yes, if Kevin did that Sam would stand with him, but could he honestly say that was what he wanted? No, he couldn’t. Just the thought ... another person he’d lost. He’d lost so many people, it didn’t feel fair that he’d lose this one before he ever had a chance to take care of them.

Though it wasn’t fair to Kevin either. He was pretty much a kid himself. He wanted, _deserved_ , to go to college, drink too much, fall in love, stay out all night and accidentally fall asleep in class, all the things Sam had done. He couldn’t ask Kevin to give up that to stay and play mommy to Sam’s kid. Wouldn’t.

So he couldn’t give the kid to anyone else, couldn’t raise it with Kevin, shouldn’t be allowed to do it himself. There was no good ending here. No outcome where they ended with a happy healthy kid. Just pain and messing up and, damn, this was horrible.

He wished a tiny part of him didn’t want to try it anyway.

***

Kevin stopped to make himself another pot of coffee and down a couple of aspirin. It wasn’t as bad today, the headache. Probably because it wasn’t a tablet headache, not really. He’d gone back to it a few times but he couldn’t find his focus, not when this ... baby thing ... was hanging over him.

He hadn't meant to go through the books Sam had left, but he’d read a good handful now, and he couldn't quite convince himself to stop. Some of them seemed a little promising but where there was description it was vague. He only needed to know two things - could he get rid of it, and if not, then how the hell was it going to come out? Once he knew that he knew he’d be able to focus again, so really it made sense to sort that out first.

It was like it was all he could think about, it just ... it wasn’t anything he’d ever thought he’d have to consider, and now he couldn’t think about anything else. He was going to have a baby. A baby! He’d never even been responsible for a house plant. His mom hadn’t let him have a hamster! He’d mess it up, he knew he would. Or life would mess it up for him like it did everything else. Crowley would get it or he’d have to send it away. Maybe he could give it to his mom to look after, but that would hardly be fair on her.

He wished she was there right now. He knew she was going to be angry and confused, but he wished she was there anyway.

He’d come across a few people in Sam's books talking about men trying to get rid of pregnancies but it had never ended well. There might not be a quick fix to this and that ... that was scary.

He downed his cup of coffee and turned back to the table. He skirted the tablet, not looking at it as though that would make it not important for now, and picked up Sam’s translation of the medallion again. He’d read it a million times, or it felt like he had. It sounded very ... final. It was strong magic, but they’d known that - blessed by a goddess to bring a child to any who touched it. It was ... it was longing and desperation and the answer to a million whispered prayers, and it wasn’t the kind of spell you broke easily.

But there had to be a way, there had to, because he just couldn’t have this baby.

***

'- you've always got to throw yourself under the goddam bus, don't you Dean.' Sam said, frustrated. They’d been going round and round this argument for hours now - only one of them could take the trials - and neither of them wanted the other to do it.

'Oh, yeah, because you've never taken a suicide mission for the team, Sam. You're a model of self-preservation.'

'So what, this is turn-about?'

'Maybe that's the only fair way to play this game.'

'It's not a _game_ , we're talking about your life here!'

'Well it's my life or yours. And if I'm picking, I'll pick yours, thanks. I'm pulling seniority, Sammy.'

Sam glared at Dean. They were staking out the ridiculous pearl-white mansion that the hellhound's last potential target lived in. Sam kept having to push the glasses up his nose. 'Dean -'

'Eyes on the target, Sam.'

'Anyone ever tell you you're a stubborn bastard?'

'All the time, Sammy, all the time.'

'I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself for me again, Dean,' Sam said, half-under his breath. It's not like this was the first time he'd had this speech on the tip of his tongue, and it's not like Dean was going to listen this time when he hadn't ever listened to it before, but it just kept bubbling to the surface. 'I've lived without you before, and you wanna know something? It fucking sucks.'

'Yeah, well,' Dean said, shrugging and not looking at Sam - keeping his eyes fixed on the pillars of the mansion. 'Been there, done that too, Sam. Believe me. I’m not sacrificing myself for you, anyway. You’re not just you now, you’ve got Kevin to think about and if not Kevin then the baby. A baby, Sam! You gonna be the kind of dead-beat who lets his kid grown up without a dad?'

'Whichever one of us does these trials, they're gonna live,' snapped Sam angrily. He didn’t want to think about that, about Kevin and babies and what kind of future he was going to be able to have. Not right now. 'Promise me that, Dean. You end up killing this hellhound, you gotta _promise me_ you're going to fight like hell to live through all this shit, okay? And if it's me, I'm doing the same. We are going to get through this together.'

Dean smiled, for a split second. 'Square deal, Sam. Whatever happens, we get through it together.'

And then a shadowy doglike figure padded up the front steps of the heiress's house, and they had work to do.

***

Dean would have sworn he could see the whites of the hellhound's eyes as it bore down on Sam. Fuck, but he hated these things. The smell of its breath, the sound of its nails scratching on the fancy linoleum - everything reminded him of that long, timeless moment of white-hot pain before he died, before he went to Hell.

He couldn't deny that part of his burning need to do this task was revenge, but even so he'd wanted to go in with a plan of attack - not just barrel in half-cocked. But seeing it go after Sammy was too much. No. Just no. No stinking hellhound was going to get anywhere near Sam. Sam could not die again, not on Dean's watch, not when he was about to be a father - not when he was the only one of the two of them who could maybe regroup after this. Sam had a future dangling in front of him if he'd only take it. Dean was gonna make sure he could, make sure he _would_.

And it all started with taking over these trials.

Dean bowled his brother out from under the monster's nose, shoulder-charging him. It was like colliding with a wall, and before Dean could regroup the hellhound was on him, interest shifted to the more intriguing, moving prey.

It was just instinct to counter it with the knife, up into its throat and then down, blade skittering over its ribcage and deep into its belly, and then he wasn't so much bathing in its blood as choking on it.

'Dean!'

Dean clung to the hellhound as it convulsed above him, clung to it until it was good and dead, until Sam was suddenly there, pulling it away and throwing it to the side to finish bleeding out. He reached out and gripped Dean’s arm and Dean let himself be pulled upright.

‘Give me the spell,’ Dean said, reaching out for the words he needed to recite to complete this thing.

‘Dean ...’ Sam said, shifting back a little.

‘No. I killed it, I’m covered in hellhound blood and I’m doing this. I promise, Sam, I’ll do my best to make it through this. I’ve got a niece or nephew on the way, remember? I wanna meet that kid. But you’re going to be a father, and I won’t let you risk yourself.’

Sam didn’t reply to that, but he did hand over the square of paper Kevin had given them and he looked away while Dean recited it, and that was as close to agreement as they were ever going to get.

***

‘Kevin?’

Kevin jerked around, dropping the book he’d been reading. Dean was leaning into the houseboat and he looked ... he looked kind of terrible.

‘I’m here,’ Kevin said, standing up. Dean nodded and came down into the boat. Sam followed after him and where Dean had looked terrible, tired and wrung out and ... kind of bloody, Sam looked worse. He had what could only be claw marks down his face and, well, they didn’t seem to be bleeding any more but there were rips in his shirt, and it was like the idiots had driven straight back here and not even stopped to clean up first.

‘Oh God, look at the two of you. Let me get the first aid kit.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ Dean protested, but Kevin didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t sure what Dean Winchester’s standard for 'bad' injuries was, but he knew he didn’t want to know. When he came back in Dean was pouring coffee and Sam had settled down at the table.

Kevin went straight to Sam, handing him a cloth and waiting until he cleaned himself and, alright, now that Sam wasn’t quite so bloody it wasn’t as bad as Kevin had thought but, seriously, couldn’t they have stopped to wash up first?

‘Did you do it?’ he asked, putting the first aid box down in front of Sam and stepping away again, suddenly conscious of how close he’d moved when he thought Sam was seriously hurt.

‘I did,’ Dean interrupted. ‘I’m doing the trials. You got the second one for us yet?’

‘No,’ Kevin admitted. He’d got a little too caught up in researching his own situation, honestly. He glanced across at the tablet ... he hadn’t even picked it up in days. Hadn’t even tried and suddenly here were Dean and Sam, covered in blood and rushing to get back to him. ‘Was it hard to kill?’

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly fun and games,’ Dean snorted. ‘We got it though. Glad we don’t have to do it again. You find anything about the ... other problem?’

‘Not really,’ Kevin admitted, guilt settling in his gut. He should be focusing on the tablet. Dean’s life now hinged on his working out the other trials, but he’d just been worrying about his own problem. It wouldn’t matter so much if he’d found something, but he’d found nothing useful. He was starting to think that any thought of ending the pregnancy was just a pipe dream on his part. It wasn’t going to happen, so he might as well just ... well ... he didn’t need to think about that yet.

They could deal with that after. Right now, he had a tablet to translate. He’d translate the tablet, they’d do the tasks and _then_ they’d fix his problem.

‘I’ll do better next time, I swear.’

‘Don’t worry, Kevin. We know you’re trying,’ Dean said, and it hurt because Kevin knew he wasn’t. 'Right. I need a shower,' Dean added, and stomped off to the bathroom without a second look, leaving Sam, who was still dabbing at the cuts on his face distractedly, and Kevin in the main room.

For a moment neither of them said anything, and Kevin was seriously considering taking the tablet and holing up in his room to ... okay, mostly to hide, but also genuinely to get back on track with the research he was supposed to be doing, when Sam coughed, and said, 'I was thinking. Uh.' And he stopped for a moment, in which Kevin's heart basically froze, and then said in a rush, 'You don't have to do this alone. I mean. You aren't alone. I'm ... this is ... Whatever you want to do, of course, it's your decision, but. I want to help.'

He looked up at Kevin then, something almost pleading in his expression, and shrugged, kind of helplessly. 'I want to help you. Please.'

‘I thought you didn’t even want to talk to me,’ Kevin said, moving away a little. Sam frowned and he tried not to notice. ‘You’ve been ignoring me for months.’

‘I thought you wouldn’t want to see me, not after what I did.’

‘You saved my life.’

‘I was responsible for it being in danger in the first place.’

‘Oh please,’ Kevin said, dropping into a chair. ‘I could say the same thing. Alright, maybe you should have researched it before you brought it to me, but I should have read it before I touched it. And after that, neither of us had a choice - not me, but not you either. And all the time since you've been avoiding me.' He shrugged. 'I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘No,’ Sam protested quickly. ‘I want to talk to you. We were friends, weren’t we? I’d like us to be friends.’

‘I’d like that too,’ Kevin agreed, ignoring the traitorous little part of his mind that kept saying he maybe wanted something more than a friend. This was hard enough already. ‘And I’d like your help. I think I’m going to need your help.’

‘You have it, anything I can do,’ Sam promised, and he reached over to squeeze Kevin’s hand. Kevin smiled, maybe they could work this after all.


	3. Second Trimester

Kevin's alarm was set for seven am. He suspected Sam had changed it to try and make him get some more sleep, and that was a nice, if slightly weird, gesture, but it just meant Kevin tended to stay up later now, poring over the tablet and trying to force it to make more sense.

At least the nausea was mostly gone. so he wasted a lot less time with that, but Dean and Sam kept dropping by suspiciously often with vegetables and, okay, he kind of got why they might want to check up on him and he definitely understood that they were anxious for more info on the trials, but having them constantly hovering around him was kind of distracting. Some days it was all he could do not to yell at them to get out of his hair.

The other thing that was annoying him right now was the way his body was changing, getting heavier and rounder and a lot more prone to back pain from sitting in a rickety chair too long.

He was also ... kind of developing a baby bump. And that weirded him out more than he could even articulate. It was little, and he could kind of hide it under his baggiest shirts, but he could feel it there, a solid reminder of the fact that something was _growing inside him_. He was dreading the day it started kicking.

He was also dreading the day Sam or Dean noticed it. They were still pretty good at treating him totally normally, or, well, Dean was - Sam was still kind of prone to be overly-helpful one moment and then back off hurriedly the next like he'd overstepped a line - but then, Kevin was doing his level best to not act like there was anything different.

But if he started to show properly, that would all change. Wouldn't it?

It was Wednesday, according to the calendar Garth had put up, which meant Kevin should probably phone his Mom and pretend everything was fine. He was getting good at that, because he couldn't claim he still had the flu four months after he'd first mentioned it.

'How are you feeling?' his Mom asked him, first thing, as always.

He smiled and said, 'Yeah, good.'

'Making any more progress?'

'Hope so,' Kevin said, sitting down again and debating whether or not another cup of gut-churning extra-strength coffee was a good idea. 'There's a really important section I'm working on now, and I keep thinking maybe I've nearly cracked it, but it's just not quite there yet. Soon, though.'

'And then after that, what else is there?' his Mom asked, and Kevin swallowed. He really, more than anything, wanted to be able to say that after that, after he'd worked out the Trials and Dean and Sam closed the gates to Hell, he'd be coming home.

But he didn't want to make a promise he couldn't keep, and he didn't want to come home with an unnatural baby bump and a handful of half-assed explanations about magic medallions and sex curses and Sam.

‘I don’t know yet, Mom. I’m sorry. I can’t really promise anything.’

She sighed, and he hated it because he knew she worried. A part of him just wanted to blurt everything out, he hated lying, but he knew it wouldn’t help with this. He was lying for her own good. She didn’t need to know and it wasn’t like it was going to matter because they would sort this out somehow.

‘Just take care of yourself. Tell those boys to take care of you too!’

‘I will, Mom,’ he said, and he could smile at that as they were talking care of him. It was a bit weird, and Sam could be kind of too much, but they were and he liked it, at least a little bit.

She talked for awhile after that about life, the little things he was missing out on by hiding in Garth’s house boat. He tuned it out, took the phone over to the kitchen to make that coffee. Once she’d gone he settled down again with the tablet, his music and his coffee.

The tablet was … it was the most frustrating thing in the world. He’d thought knowing it was trials might speed the thing up but it didn’t. He had to do this, though. Dean and Sam … they’d been looking more and more worried every time they came to visit and that wasn’t a good thing. He knew something was going on but he also knew they weren’t going to trust him with it, not when he was ‘expecting’.

He took some aspirin, then some more aspirin, trying to fight the growing headache. It was never any use but he tried. He missed dinner but he ate some lettuce from the pack before he finally fell into bed at 3am so he figured it was about right.

He really hated the tablet.

***

Sam hadn't fucking moved in fifty miles - staring out the window at the landscape rolling away instead. He hadn't even reacted to the Lynyrd Skynyrd tape Dean shoved into the tape-deck, and that was usually a surefire way to at least get him to complain. 

He still hadn't so much as looked Dean's way by the time they reached the houseboat. 'Okay, this is ridiculous,' said Dean as he pulled the Impala over. 'Dude, you cannot keep going in there with the emo face and the … the Heathcliffian sighs, okay?'

Sam flinched, squinted at him. Hey, at least he was reacting. 'What? Dean -'

'No, listen to me.' Dean shifted in his seat so that he could look his brother in the eye. 'I get that you're - that this is still taking time to process. Hell, I'm still having trouble wrapping my head round it. But you and me, we have that luxury because we're not the ones carrying that baby. So you and me? We do our processing elsewhere. In there, we have to at least try to act like this is not the end of the world, Sam. Because it isn't.'

'Oh, so, what, you wanna throw a baby shower?' Sam said, huffing out a bitter laugh. 'I can't just flip a switch and be okay with this, Dean. It's too big. It's too much, and I can't - I don't see how this is going to turn out okay.'

'Then you lie,' Dean said, turning the engine off and unbuckling his seatbelt. 'You hear me, Sammy? You lie through your teeth, until he believes you, until _you_ fucking believe you, because this is gonna turn out okay if it's the last thing I do.'

***

‘Kevin, you down there?’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin yelled. ‘Gimme a sec.’

He jumped up, eyes quickly scanning the room. What to move first? The aspirin. It had to be the aspirin. He grabbed the bottle and shoved it in a cupboard, then quickly shoved the nearest empty coffee mugs in there too, but there was too much evidence to hide and there were already feet on the stairs so he closed the door and turned back around.

At least they wouldn’t see the aspirin. They’d started refusing to bring it a few weeks ago so he’d got Garth to bring some. Luckily, he hadn’t told the Winchesters about the request. Probably.

‘You alright?’ Dean asked, moving in to view finally. He was carrying a box full of fruit and veg again and Kevin was grateful, he really was, but he kind of wished they’d just go back to bringing hot dogs. The sausages tasted fine and took like ten minutes to cook (though the taste still made him a little nauseous). Vegetables - he either ate them raw or they were a pain to deal with, and he was getting tired of raw vegetables.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he said, moving away from the cupboard quickly to draw attention from the evidence. ‘I’ve been working hard, nothing yet though.’

‘You have been remembering to sleep, right?’ Sam asked, descending the stairs behind Dean. Kevin rolled his eyes but Sam was already scanning the room. ‘There are an awful lot of coffee cups here.’

‘I don’t wash up that often,’ Kevin said. And it wasn’t a lie but it also wasn’t really the truth.

‘You are resting, right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ Kevin said, pulling out his chair and dropping down into it. ‘You guys don’t need to come by so often, Garth stops in when he can. I’ll phone you when I find anything.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Kevin,’ Dean said, dropping the box on the table and upsetting some notes. Kevin reached forward across the table quickly, gathering the notes up and shoving them back where they had been.

‘Can you watch that, please?’ he asked, looking up, but Dean had a really weird look on his face.

‘You’re really starting to show, aren’t you? I didn’t notice when you were moving around before, stand up and let me see.’

‘No,’ Kevin protested, but Dean kind of grabbed his arm and he let himself be pulled up. He was kind of showing, Dean was right. His shirts, well, they still just fit but maybe he wasn’t going to be able to force the buttons much longer.

‘Let me see,’ Sam said, and suddenly he was just kind of there, right in Kevin’s space and staring down at him with this weird kind of fascination on his face. Honestly, Kevin wasn’t used to this focus yet. This fussing, and Sam did fuss. It was like he thought he could make up for the months of ignoring Kevin by being overly attentive now.

‘It’s really not that exciting,’ he insisted, pushing at the two of them. They stepped back, but Sam was looking like a damn wounded puppy.

‘You know what,’ Dean said, still grinning from his discovery. ‘I’m gonna head out to the Impala for a minute and let you two talk.’

‘Dean,’ Kevin protested, but he was already gone. He’d been increasingly less subtle in the last few weeks about giving Kevin time alone with Sam and, well, at least it wasn’t horribly awkward like it had been. They could be alone and have a conversation but it was still ... it wasn’t great.

‘Sorry,’ Sam said, backing off a little more and trying to smile, but his eyes were still on Kevin’s stomach.

‘Go on,’ Kevin said, exasperated. ‘Ask me.’

‘I don’t ...’ Sam started, but Kevin glared and he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Would it be alright if I touched?’

For a second, now the words were out there, Kevin wanted to say no. He wanted to shove Sam away, like letting Sam touch him would make this more real somehow - or maybe bring things back. Sam had been very careful, other than a few little slips. They’d not really touched, not since.

‘Yeah,’ he said, quiet. ‘I mean, there’s nothing to feel yet, really.’

‘Thanks,’ Sam said, a happy look crossing his face to be quickly replaced by an apologetic smile as he reached over and laid his hand on Kevin.

Through Kevin's shirt, Sam’s hand was warm and large, and it did remind him. Reminded him of those big strong hands picking him up and moving him around like he was nothing - something he thought he should not have enjoyed, but somehow he had. Kevin thought about what it’d be like to be touched like that again, maybe at a time when they’d both chosen to be there.

He pushed the thoughts back quickly, stepping away from under Sam’s hand. He couldn’t afford to think like that. There was no point, Sam didn’t actually want him. Why torture himself?

‘Thank you,’ Sam said, almost reverently, lowering his hand.

‘It’s fine,’ Kevin said with a blush. ‘You want to go and tell Dean he can come back in now?’

‘Yeah, I guess I should,’ Sam agreed, though he gave Kevin a long look before he headed out of the boat to find his brother. Kevin used those precious few seconds to breath a sigh of relief. And hide a few more coffee cups.

***

The Winchesters settled in for the weekend, and Kevin was chafing at the bit. Okay, so, Dean cooked actual food, and Sam tidied up, and they gave him as much space as they could but it was so, so clear that they were trying to look after him, and that was stifling. Kevin ended up stuffing the tablet into his shirt and shuffling off to hide it in his room so that he could work on it at night, when he was most productive, because they sort of tried to guilt him into having a sensible bedtime. Which, frankly, coming from either Sam or Dean was incredibly hypocritical.

At one am, Kevin was sitting bundled up in blankets in a corner of his room, the tablet resting on his knees, and he was concentrating finally, like he'd been trying for for two days, and there was something - sense was coming out of the symbols like clouds slowly forming into a stormfront ...

He scrabbled for a notebook and pen, unable to tear his eyes away from the tablet just in case his potential breakthrough disappeared. This was going to be the second trial, he just knew it. It had to be.

The tablet was putting up a fight, though. Kevin squeezed his eyes shut for a moment against the pain in his head, letting his fingers run over the deeply-cut symbols on the clay, and then forced himself to look back.

_Blood_ was the first thing he got. His head was spinning, but he could make out 'blood'. He was more than familiar with the tablet saying that. Scribbling it down, he kept trying to read.

Second trial. More blood. And ...

_Reaper_.

Kevin's eyes blurred and closed against the sudden screaming agony of his head. He vaguely heard the clatter of the tablet as it fell to the floor, but then the churning in his stomach overtook everything else, and he had to get to the bathroom.

He didn't even know how he made it there, just that as he heaved and his guts emptied themselves and 'blood of a Reaper' circled through his head, someone's long fingers carded the sweat-soaked hair off his forehead, cool and soothing.

'I know what the second task is,' Kevin said when he was done, slumping back against the bathroom wall. Whoever it was that had held his head while he threw up helped him sit. His throat was raw. 'I read it - I know what it is,'

'Kevin?' said Dean, coming to the door. Kevin blinked, and looked across. Sam was sitting on the bathroom floor a couple of feet away, looking worried.

Kevin shook himself. 'You have to kill a Reaper.'

***

Sam came back into the bedroom, glass of water clutched in his hand. Kevin was back in bed though he looked ... he looked about as good as Sam felt, and Sam felt pretty shitty right now. Once they’d got Kevin off the floor of the bathroom he’d agreed to them putting him into bed, and Sam had taken the chance to take the tablet away and fetch a glass of water.

They’d suspected Kevin was still working too long. He’d looked tired, nervous all the time. And it wasn’t that Sam didn’t want to know what the trials were, but not like this. It wasn’t worth the cost. He was meant to be protecting Kevin now - after all, Kevin was pregnant because of him. It was his responsibility, and he was failing at it. Kevin was pale, jittery, and something was going to go horribly wrong. Sam just knew it.

Kevin looked up when he came back in, reached out to take the glass of water without comment. Sam wanted to lean over and check his temperature but they didn’t touch, he couldn’t. Wasn't allowed.

‘You feeling better?’ he asked instead, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed. Kevin nodded, sipping at the water.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘I’m just glad I finally got it, I didn’t think it’d take that long!’

‘Hey,’ Dean interrupted. ‘Just ... don’t worry about it. You got it, that’s all that matters.’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin said, and for a second he seemed to actually relax, his eyes drifting closed, before they snapped open again. ‘So, how are you going to kill a Reaper? I mean, any ideas at all?’

‘Give us time, Kevin,’ Sam said, smiling a little. ‘That bit’s our job anyway, don’t worry about it.’

‘I won’t,’ Kevin said, twisting the glass between his hands. ‘I’ll just focus on the last task. I’m sure it’ll slot into place more quickly now.’

‘The last task and taking care of yourself,’ Sam prompted. Kevin didn’t comment, just rolled his glass between his palms again. ‘Please, Kevin. You need to take care of yourself too.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Kevin insisted, suddenly holding the glass out for Sam to take. ‘Look, I’ll even go to sleep right now, alright? Can we just ... can we just not?’

‘I guess,’ Sam said, taking the glass. As he did his fingers brushed against Kevin’s. He kind of wished he could just reach over and touch. Touch Kevin’s hand or his shoulder or, hell, just shake him until he realised how important this actually was. What, exactly, he was putting on the line when he didn’t take care of himself.

The entire thing made him glad they’d not told Kevin about the part where the 'purifying' effects of the Trials meant Dean was puking blood. That really wouldn’t be fun.

Dean gave Sam a significant look and stepped out. But Kevin rolled over pointedly, and Sam was pretty sure sleep was more important than awkward conversation anyway. So he just took the glass of water and followed his brother, closing the door behind him.

'So. Reaper blood,' Dean said quietly. He drummed his fingers on the table top. 'That's gonna be a job and a half to get. Can't even see the bastards unless you're dying.'

'We could bind one,' Sam said, shrugging. He pulled the tablet towards him across the table and looked at it. 'We have got to stop him killing himself over this,' he added.

Dean dragged a hand across his face. 'Yeah, I know, but how, Sam? It's not like we don't need the intel. And we can't get someone else to do it, and he's not a kid, we can't tell him what to do, or how to do his goddamn job. He's the Prophet. There don't seem to be any archangels left to guard him. Just us. We just gotta let him work, keep Crowley off his back, and do damage control.'

Sam bit his lip. 'Yeah, and we've done such a great job with that. Dean, he's compromised. We - _I_ \- compromised him. We gotta step up a bit more than just 'damage control'.'

Dean sighed. 'So what do you wanna do, Sammy? Babysit? Take the tablet away from him when you think he's had enough?' Dean was being sarcastic, but he had a point. What exactly _could_ they do?

'Look after him better, I guess.' Sam shrugged. He knew it sounded lame. 'Take the pressure off?'

Dean looked at Sam frankly. 'Well, sure. I'm game. But you got any idea how?'

Sam didn’t.

***

‘For the record, I don’t think you should be out of bed yet,’ Sam groused. Kevin ignored him, pulling up a chair and sitting down at the table. Alright, he did feel kind of horrible still, but what good was he doing anyone lying around in bed? He’d be fine, he just had to get up and get moving.

‘Never mind me, I’m fine,’ he said, taking his glass of water. As soon as the Winchesters were gone he was going to stock up on caffeine and get back to the tablet. It was like an itch in the back of his mind, he needed to get back to it soon, there was no time to waste.

‘We could have this talk in your room, you know,’ Dean said, and he had that worried frown on his face that Kevin hated. He wasn’t somehow fragile now, he didn’t need babysitting any more than he had before. Hell, he’d probably needed it more back when the Winchesters had disappeared and left him on his own for a year. Though it wasn’t exactly fair on Dean to think like that.

‘Just get on with it. How do you kill a Reaper?’

‘Well, I’ve done a bit more research,’ Sam said, shifting in his seat. ‘I still haven't found any way to see them other than to be close to death, though.’

‘Alright,’ Dean said, letting his eyes slide closed. He seemed tired, resigned. Kevin tried not to look too closely. ‘So, I’ve got to nearly die before I can see the thing to stab it.’

‘Yes. But the good news is, we can bind it in place so it should be an easy target.' Sam fidgeted for a moment. 'But, uh, it might not be too easy to stab, either. The only blades known to work are angel blades, or Death's scythe.’

‘Damn,’ Dean sighed. ‘Well, I’m sure we've got something in the trunk that'll do.’

‘Erm, am I missing something?’ Kevin asked, shifting. ‘I mean, to start with, if you’ve got it trapped why does Dean even need to see it?’

‘If nobody’s near death one won’t even turn up,’ Dean said with a shrug. ‘And we need to know it’s in the trap before we activate it.’

‘Alright, that makes sense,’ Kevin agreed. ‘And then you’re just going to stab it with the wrong blade? I mean, maybe I’ve got the wrong idea, but don’t you guys have an angel friend?’

Sam looked damn uncomfortable at that and Dean stood, walking away to glare at the wall with the tablet translations pinned to it. Kevin raised an eyebrow at Sam but the other man just shook his head and sat there quietly for a second until Dean finally answered.

‘Cas is ... Cas isn’t much help right now.’

‘We’ve not heard from him in ages and there’s ... there’s something wrong with him,’ Sam confirmed. ‘He’s not really an option right now.’

‘So we do this the hard way,’ Dean finished. ‘But what the hell else is new? Alright, I want to swing by the bat cave for supplies and then we should do the ritual a way from here, just to be safe. You going to be alright, Kevin?’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin said quickly before Sam could protest. ‘I’ll be fine, it’s not as bad as the last time I made a breakthrough with the tablet.’

‘Just, please promise you’ll rest?’ Sam said, frown lines over his forehead. Kevin kind of wanted to reach over and stroke them away, tell him not to worry, but they didn’t have that kind of relationship right now.

‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, not meaning a word of it. ‘You two go slay a Reaper, I’ll go back to bed.’

***

Sam didn't believe Kevin when he said he was planning on getting bed rest. He also didn't believe him when he said that he wasn't feeling as bad as the last time he'd made serious progress on the tablet. Kevin looked, frankly, like shit. It was all Sam could do not to bundle him up and physically drag him to bed.

A tiny whisper in the back of his head said that if he had to make sure Kevin stayed in bed by personally supervising, it wouldn't be such a bad thing. He ignored it. 'You'd better,' he said instead, and regretted it pretty much instantly. Kevin wasn't Dean - Sam couldn't order him around even if he didn't expect to be obeyed. 'I know the work is important, Kevin, but if you want to get it done, you're going to have to take care of yourself.' He felt like such a stuck record, but he just ... he had to keep saying it, hoping that it would eventually sink it, that Kevin would eventually understand.

'You're not my mom, Sam,' Kevin said, rolling his eyes. 'I'm a grown-up, I can look after myself. Just go, for God's sake.'

'Come on, Sam,' said Dean, making for the door. 'You heard the guy.' He paused, waiting for Sam to follow him, and when Sam met his eyes he kind of shrugged.

'Just ... take it easy, okay?' Sam said, in a last-ditch attempt.

'I will,' said Kevin.

He was blatantly lying, and there was nothing Sam could do about it.

***

The first thing Kevin did after the Winchesters had finally left was the dishes. Or, at least, all the ones he could find. He wasn't quite sure he'd found all his panicked coffee cup hiding places, but there seemed to be a lot more clean cups when he was done, so he figured it was a start.

It was pretty clear to him that if he wanted to get through this he was going to have to be a lot more efficient about things, otherwise this was all going to end in Sam hovering, Dean baking endless pies, and bed-rest, and Kevin was pretty sure that would drive him to homicide in the end. Not that any jury would convict him.

No, he had to get a routine going. Tablet. Pregnancy research. And making sure the place didn't look like some kind of disgusting pit, so that he'd be left alone long enough to get his work done.

He felt an uncomfortable twinge in his gut as he stood at the sink, washing cups, but he figured it was probably because he'd spent so long sitting, and the bump was weirdly awkward. He probably needed more exercise, or at least to move around more, so he shuffled a few of Garth's emergency crates of God-knows-what into a sort of standing-desk and put the tablet on top, in front of his wall of research.

His back hurt. The cramps didn't go away, either, and the tablet refused to let him have any more information. He could swear it had moods or something. So instead he picked up some of Sam's pregnancy research books and dumped them in a pile on his 'desk'.

He rubbed absently at his sore belly, leafing through a book, and decided that he'd been good long enough, and it was coffee time. And then it seemed like a good idea to have a dose of aspirin as well, because it was stupid to stand here and just put up with pain, not if he had a way to make it go away.

***

Kevin slammed the book on the table. It didn’t really make him feel any better, but he did it anyway. The book remained stubbornly unaffected by his mood, and somehow that made him angrier. Like he’d expected the pages to tear or something.

The aspirin had worked for a little while, then the pain had got worse. He’d necked a few more aspirin but they hadn’t done anything to ease the cramping. It was weird, like a band tightening around his middle, and it hurt like hell. It kept kind of ebbing, a strong stabbing pain occasionally but mostly just this nagging pain and he couldn’t get a damn thing done.

And maybe he was a little bit worried. It was probably just a left-over from his little fit after he decoded the tablet, though. It happened.

Yeah, that was definitely it. He should probably actually do what he’d promised Sam he’d do and try to sleep the thing off. It wasn’t like he could do any work in this state anyway. Thing was, he probably wasn’t going to be able to sleep like this either. Ridiculous.

He gave the book one last glare and went through to the bathroom. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and scowled. He looked kind of like hell, wonderful. He normally kept a towel over that thing for a reason and he dug it out again now, draping it carefully over the cabinet so he could use the room without having to look at himself.

Alright, a shower. Showers helped with aches, right? He pulled off his shirt, trying to ignore how tight it was now. Better not to think too much about that. Then he kicked down his trousers and his underwear and he froze.

There was red. But he hadn’t been wearing anything red, especially not underwear. His underwear was white. He reached down and picked it up. White, but red spots. Little, damp red spots.

Fuck, he was bleeding.

He sat down on the toilet seat quickly and parted his legs then, after a second's hesitation, slid his hand down there and, dammit, that definitely hadn’t been there earlier. He would have noticed if he’d grown some extra equipment. Well, that’s what he presumed it was, anyway. That’s what it felt like, as far as he knew. Not that he’d ever actually touched but ... never mind.

Maybe that’s what this pain was? Maybe he was growing a way out for the baby, finally. That was kind of a weight off his mind, if he was. It needed a way out pretty badly.

And ... and maybe the blood was just from the thing opening up? He grabbed a wash cloth and wiped at himself quickly. It came away with more blood and he washed it down the sink. That had to be it, what else could it be?

But, why now?

Why hadn’t the pain stopped now he had all the appropriate parts?

No, he was being paranoid, right? He stood up and gathered his dirty and bloody clothes, made his way to the bedroom and shoved them at the bottom of the hamper. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about what else it might mean. He turned to get a fresh change of clothes to take back into the bathroom but he didn’t go back. Instead he sat down, tried not to think about what he was doing, and put his hand between his legs again.

It came back with blood.

***

Sam looked up from the sigil he was painting when his phone started to ring. There weren’t really that many other people who called Sam, other than Dean, who was in the room with him, and Kevin. And they’d just come from there. For half a second he considered ignoring it and focusing on the sigils, which were taking a lot longer than they’d thought. Sam didn’t want to risk getting one wrong because of being distracted. He couldn’t do it though, and on the third ring he dropped his brush into the paint pot, and pulled out his phone.

The caller ID said Kevin. He frowned, and hit the accept button.

‘Hey, Kevin,’ he said, shifting back so he didn’t smudge the half-finished sigil. ‘You alright?’

‘I ... not really ...’ Kevin said, and somehow he sounded small and lost. Something cold dropped into Sam's gut. ‘I think ... I think I need some help.’

‘Alright, what’s happened?’ Sam said, raising an eyebrow in his brother's direction, trying to sound calm, reassuring, while his mind raced. Across the room Dean had stopped working and put his brush down too.

‘I know you just left but please, can you come back? Something’s not right.’

‘What’s not right?’ Sam asked, gesturing Dean closer. Dean moved slowly across the room. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, Kevin.’

‘I ... I’m cramping and I’m bleeding a little and I think ... I think I might be losing the baby, Sam. I don’t know what to do.’

There was an edge of panic in Kevin’s voice and Sam knew he should respond with something reassuring but it was like all thoughts had left his head. Slowly he lowered the phone and turned to Dean, who was looking at him, worried.

‘What?’ Dean snapped.

‘He thinks he’s miscarrying,’ Sam said, and it sounded weird to hear himself say it. Because it couldn’t be right? Not when he’d been trying so hard. Not when he’d been starting to hope.

‘Go to him,’ Dean said without hesitation. ‘Take the Impala and go now.’

‘But the Reaper ...’ Sam was torn.

Dean wasn't, not in the slightest. He crossed his arms. ‘I’ll take care of it,' he said.

‘You can’t do this alone.’

‘Then I’ll call Cas. I won’t do it unless he comes, Sam. Just go to Kevin. If he needs you then you’d better go to him.’

‘Alright,’ Sam said, then he lifted the phone to his ear. It was oddly quiet on the other end and Sam wondered how much, if any, of that conversation Kevin had picked up.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said, waiting for Kevin’s whispered 'okay' before hanging up and heading out to the Impala to finish unloading the supplies for the Reaper killing, and leave.

***

Dean put the final touches on his Reaper-binding set-up and tried to pretend his mind was totally in the game. But he'd always been crap at lying to himself. Half of him was imagining sitting with Sam in the Impala, driving back to Kevin. He knew the whole pregnant-Kevin, Sam's-curse-baby thing wasn't even really any of his business ... but a) it was Sam, and b) ... family. Kids. _Winchester_ kids, something he'd always been pretty sure was never going to be on the cards for either of them.

And now ... okay, not the best circumstances, but if there was one thing Dean had learnt over the years it was that you had to fucking latch onto anything good that came out of the shit that made up most of their lives, and sometimes when he watched Sam and Kevin together he thought there was definitely good in there, good that could grow, and just the very idea that Sam might have a kid made his heart seize up with hope.

God, he hoped this was a false alarm, that Kevin was just worried and lonely and freaking out.

He took a deep breath and tried to focus. Sam was on the case with Kevin. They'd be fine. Meanwhile, he had a goddamn job to do, and he couldn't do it alone. He had to make a call.

'Cas? Cas, you there?' he asked, staring up at the ceiling kind of out of habit, like he could somehow unfocus and see Cas up in Heaven or something. 'I need your help.'

'This place is heavily warded,' said Cas from behind him. Dean turned to see Cas peering around. 'What are you doing, Dean?'

Dean squared his shoulders as Cas looked at him, cleared his throat and pretended he couldn't taste blood in the back of his mouth. 'Trying to catch a Reaper,' he said.

Cas squinted. 'Why would you do that?'

'To close the gates of Hell,' Dean said, rolling his eyes. 'Why do you think?'

'This is a dangerous proposition,' Cas pointed out. 'To succeed you will need to be -'

'Practically dead,' Dean said. 'Yeah, I know. That's why I need your help.'

Cas looked around again. 'Where's Sam?'

Dean shrugged. 'Checking on Kevin, I think,' he said, as if it wasn't that important. 'We've kind of got a lot on our plate at the moment. And I want him out of the firing line if this doesn't go right.' It was all true, just not all of the truth. He held Cas's eyes and reminded himself fiercely that angels couldn't exactly read minds. 'Plus, I need an angel's blade to kill this thing.'

Cas sighed. 'It is against the natural order of things to kill a Reaper -'

'It's against the natural order of things to have wide-open gates of Hell and demons running around like cockroaches,' Dean interrupted.

'- but, I was about to say, it is the will of Heaven that you succeed in these trials. I will aid you.'

Dean let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

***

Kevin had curled up in a corner of his bedroom, sitting on the floor with his cellphone. The cramps (he couldn't deny that's what they were) weren't going away.

He wished he hadn't called Sam. He felt so goddamn stupid. What could Sam do, really? What could anyone do? Frantic Googling had pretty much told him to go to bed, 'think positive thoughts' and wait for it to go either one way or the other.

Well, he was fresh out of positive thoughts. And he'd called Sam because he wanted to hear a reassuring voice, he wanted someone to tell him not to panic, and because somewhere not even that deep down, he desperately didn't want to be doing this alone. And Sam had said, he'd _said_ that he would help Kevin so that he didn't have to do this alone.

Sam wasn't the only person Kevin wanted to reassure him, though.

Finally, the other end of the line picked up. 'Linda Tran,' his Mom said briskly.

'Hey, Mom,' Kevin said, trying to steel the shakiness out of his voice. But she was going to be able to tell, of course she was.

'Kevin? Kevin, what's wrong?' She already knew. 'Kevin, baby, tell me what's happening. Are you hurt?'

'You're not going to believe me,' Kevin said, choking back a hysterical sort of giggle, fighting for a rational voice. He was a grown-up, he was having a goddamn baby, he could tell his mother. 'But I have to - I -'

'Just tell me,' his Mom said urgently. 'Nothing's too crazy, Kevin. Not after all this time.'

'I'm having a baby,' Kevin said, almost whispering. 'Or. I was. I think I'm having a miscarriage, Mom. There's blood, and it hurts, and ...' He trailed off. She wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't she saying anything?

There was a long, terrible silence, or what felt like one, anyway, and then his Mom said, 'Where are you?' gently, like she was trying not to spook him. 'Are you at the houseboat?'

'Yes.'

'Are you in bed?'

'No.' Kevin felt about five - five, and sick, and scared.

'Get in bed,' his Mom ordered him. 'Get warm, breathe, try to stay calm. Are either of those Winchesters with you?' For the first time she sounded mad, and Kevin was kind of relieved that he could honestly say no.

'They're off on a job,' he said. 'They're - I've called them. They're going to get here as soon as they can.'

'That's not going to be soon enough, is it.'

'I - I don't know.'

'I'm coming to you, Kevin,' his Mom said. She overrode his attempt to protest. 'No, I don't care. You're my son, and I am coming to look after you.'

Relief and a weird kind of fear, different to the panic over the cramps, flooded Kevin's veins. 'Don't you want to know how this happened?' he asked, hauling himself up off the floor and wincing at the deep, bone-sick ache in his gut. 'Mom, I -'

'It doesn't matter.' His Mom's voice was brisk and businesslike, like it used to be when she was telling him he could do whatever he put his mind do, or that she was proud of him. 'Tell me later. And Kevin?'

'Yeah, Mom?'

'I love you.'

***

Sam didn’t stop to lock the Impala behind him. Hell, he barely even stopped to kill the engine, it was only the thought of what Dean would say if he knew that gave him pause to turn the car off before basically running to the house boat.

He found Kevin in the bedroom, curled up on his side under a blanket and looking pale. Pale and scared. He looked up, wide eyed, when Sam came in, but didn’t move.

‘Are you alright?’ Sam said, coming over to the bed then kneeling quickly so he could look Kevin in the eye. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I’m still cramping,’ Kevin mumbled. ‘It’s really ... it hurts a lot. The bleeding ... I’m not sure it’s as bad as it was, it’s really hard to tell, but I’ve only passed blood yet. The internet said as long as I’m not passing tissue it’s not hopeless yet. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have phoned you.’

‘Yes you should,’ Sam said, reaching over to grip Kevin’s hand. ‘You definitely should. I said I wanted to be there for you, I still do. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Not really,’ Kevin whispered. ‘There’s not ... there’s not much anyone can do, from what I’ve found out. I mean, maybe you can do some research? Your research skills are probably better than mine.’

‘I’ll try,’ Sam said, but he recognised it as the gift it was. Something to do, something to keep him busy while Kevin lay there in pain, losing their baby. ‘Is there anything I can do for you? Can I get you a drink?’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin said, he sounded so small and unsure. Didn’t even joke about getting a coffee. Sam only left him for a few seconds to fill a glass with water and he felt guilty about doing it. He helped Kevin sit up a little to take a drink.

‘Thank you,’ Kevin said, leaning against him a little more then he maybe had to and Sam tightened his arm. If he could he’d keep them both here like this and damn the rest of the world. If he could hold this back by sheer force of will he would, but he knew there was no chance of that.

There was actually nothing he could do.

***

'You are gonna fix this after, right?' Dean said, pausing before he slashed his own wrist. 'Because otherwise I'm kind of screwed.' He was sitting in the middle of his Reaper trap with Cas's angel blade - Cas was lurking in the shadows.

'Of course,' Cas said, folding his arms.

'Well, good,' said Dean. He gritted his teeth and made the cut. 'Okay. Now I'm ... bleeding out on the floor of a shitty abandoned warehouse. Awesome. If this goes south, Cas, you'd better make up a kickass lie about my heroic death, okay?'

Cas just blinked owlishly at him.

Dean was starting to feel groggy from the blood loss already.

'Come on, you bastard,' he growled up at the ceiling. 'Dying man here, right?'

'You're the last person I expected to see slashing their own wrists,' said a soft voice from behind him. 'Dean Winchester. Aren't you more the 'eating your own gun' type?'

Dean twisted, craning his neck. The reaper was a guy this time. Typical, not even a hot reaper. He gritted his teeth and gripped the knife.

‘Yeah, well, sometimes life doesn’t do what you expect. Couldn’t they have sent someone prettier to pick my ass up?’

‘Not right now, no,’ the reaper smirked. ‘Come on, Dean. What’s your plan? There has to be a plan. Do you want me to smuggle you into heaven? Because getting in is the easy part, I have to tell you. Or maybe you’d rather I take you to hell? There are people who can get you there without the massive blood loss, you know.’ the reaper said, moving closer with a smirk.

‘Yeah, well, I think I’m going to stick with my plan,’ Dean said, reaching over and laying his bloody palm on the sigil that would activate the trap. The reaper hissed as the trap lit up around him and then he tried to move, but it was like the trap had glued his feet to the floor.

‘What, exactly, are you trying to do?’ the reaper asked, but by now Dean was feeling it. It was effort to pull his bloody hand away from the sigil. Effort to drop the knife he was carrying and pick up Cas’s angel blade that was lying at his feet. The reaper was close and he staggered over, almost passing out in the process. The reaper tried to push him away, cursing, but the binding was good and Dean brought the knife into the reaper’s throat.

The blood spurted out all over him and he grinned. Done it. Had the blood. He let himself fall to the floor, rubbing the blood of the reaper into his skin along with his own blood. He took a breath but it was shaky, he really didn’t have long.

‘A little help here, Cas?’

***

Dean was sprawled on the dirty floor, smeared and filthy with Reaper blood and still bleeding in his own right, and he grinned madly up at Castiel, reaching out to him. 'A little help here, Cas?' he said, and Castiel stepped forward, already rolling up his sleeves -

'No, Castiel.'

Naomi's voice was calm - Castiel blinked, thrown by the sudden change to light and cleanliness.

'But he's my friend,' Castiel said, not understanding why she wouldn't want him to heal Dean. 'And he's useful -'

'He's holding you back,' she said firmly. She came around to stand in front of her desk, closer to Castiel. He stepped back automatically. 'Let nature take its course, Castiel. We can find another human to undertake this task. There are other hellhounds, other reapers. Nothing's been wasted, except a little time.'

'I promised him,' Castiel protested.

Naomi smiled gently. 'You are an Angel of the Lord, Castiel -'

'- Cas,' Dean said, urgently, like he'd been saying the name for some time. 'Snap out of it, man. Come on. I need a zap. I'm kind of feeling the ... you know, dark closing in thing. Dude. Cas. Castiel -'

Castiel made himself look away.

'Good, Castiel,' Naomi said, placing a hand on his shoulder encouragingly. Castiel felt his fists clench unbidden. 'Let him go. Let him go to his rest. You're doing him a kindness.'

'And will he come to Heaven?' Cas asked roughly, pulling away from her.

'That's to be decided,' she said. Her tone was warm, her face open, sincere, and Castiel felt a stab of desperate anger at her words nonetheless.

'Are you telling me that Dean Winchester, of all people, may still be destined for the Pit?' he demanded. 'You ask me to let him die, the man we owe _everything_ to, and you can't even tell me if he'll get his paradise?'

'He has committed many sins, done many wrongs,' Naomi said, facade cracking. 'And it was he who opened the first seal, he who wasn't vigilant enough and let his brother drink demon blood enough to be suitable as Lucifer's vessel. And Castiel -'

Dean's face was pleading, hand outstretched now and blade dropped to the cold floor '- Cas, please, man, I'm checking out here -'

'- when all's said and done, he refused Michael. We don't owe him 'everything'. We owe him little, if anything. You are compromised, Castiel -'

Castiel pulled back again, and Dean had crawled to him now, while he was away inside his own mind.

'Cas, please -'

'Castiel, listen to me -'

Castiel was flat up against the back wall of Naomi's sterile, plastic office, pushing away from her influence as hard as he could, but she was still reaching out for him. 'You're doing the right thing,' she said, encouragingly, but he could hear an edge of desperation in her undertone. 'This is the right thing, Castiel.'

Dean was all blood and pain on the floor in front of him. 'Help me,' he choked. 'Cas. Why are you doing this?''

'Let it happen,' Naomi ordered.

'You're my family, Cas. Family. You wouldn't leave me to die. Whatever's doing this to you, fight it, man. Fight it. Please. Cas, I -'

'Step away, Castiel. Let Death have him.'

'- I need you.'

Castiel's fingers were nerveless, his feet were leaden, but he could not, he _could not_ stand by at someone's order when Dean needed him.

Castiel dropped to his knees and clutched Dean's face between his hands, willing him healed, willing him whole, clean, without pain. Somewhere behind him, far away, he thought he could hear an angry shout, his name perhaps, but he ignored it.

***

Kevin really needed the bathroom. He’d been putting it off for far too long, but he really really needed the bathroom.

He knew he was being ridiculous but he also knew that going to the toilet, well, it would make it a lot harder to ignore what was going on, which he was trying his best for right now, honestly. He’d been lying on his side for hours, first alone and then with Sam fussing. Sam fussing was nice if only because it gave him something to focus on besides his own body. He let Sam run around taking care of things for him, and he didn’t have to think.

Only now he had to move, and now he had to find out if he was still bleeding.

He kept having these ridiculous thoughts, like if he stood up after all this time and suddenly the entire thing just came flooding out of him on to the bedroom floor and they’d never be able to clean it and he’d just ...

He didn’t want to think about it.

But he really needed to go to the toilet.

He shifted, admitting defeat, and moving to stand. Sam, who’d been sat on the floor with a book in his lap, was on his feet on a second, holding out a hand like he was going to touch, then yanking it back at the last minute, which sucked because Kevin really wouldn’t mind falling into Sam’s arms for a little while right now. He could admit it to himself at least.

‘Hey, you alright?’ Sam asked. ‘Can I get you something?’

‘Sorry,’ Kevin said with a forced smile. ‘I need the bathroom, you can’t do that for me.’

‘Let me help you, though,’ Sam insisted, actually touching him this time and Kevin wasn’t going to do anything to discourage those little touches. Instead he let Sam guide him to the bathroom and take up position at the door like a sentry.

He did his business, cleaned himself up, looked himself in the eye in the mirror ... but he had to know. He’d spent the first hour with his hands between his legs, chronicling every drip of blood as if he could stop them by observing them. It had started to freak him out though with all the not stopping it was doing so he hadn’t looked.

But now he was here, and he needed to know. He couldn’t walk out of the bathroom again without looking. He couldn’t.

So he reached down.

Still had the wrong parts, slotted in nicely behind his usual equipment. Still wet, oh god still wet. He lifted his hand out quickly and his fingers were red with fresh blood and it was happening, just like he’d imagined it was happening. He’d hurt it, he’d messed up and now everything was going to come falling out of him and he was going to lose it.

He was going to lose his baby.

He’d had a baby, and now he was going to lose it.

The realisation hit him like a fist and left him feeling raw, raw and open and when he looked down he saw his hands were shaking, felt tears on his face but it felt like he was removed from it all, none of it was real because he was going to be a dad but he’d lost it all.

He felt so worthless, in that moment.

It was weird how he’d never thought about it before, never let himself think about it but now he did. He thought about a baby. A baby that was his and was Sam’s and maybe he’d get a place somewhere and maybe it could be a place Sam could come back to. He’d have this tiny thing, so vulnerable and so needy and he’d hold it and it’d hold him and he’d love it and now he wasn’t going to have anything because he was so stupid and so ridiculous and he couldn’t even stop the tears falling from his own eyes, couldn’t even do anything for anyone so how was he meant to have a baby? This was his punishment for being so worthless, to realise what he was losing just as it was slipping between his fingers.

‘Kevin,’ Sam said, and Kevin wished there was somewhere to run because he couldn’t let Sam see him like this, not now. Not when he’d lost their baby, Sam’s baby, and it was all his fault. He knew Sam wanted it, that Sam had thought about it. Knew the tender way he’d looked at Kevin’s bump, like a blessing he’d thought he’d never receive. How could Sam stand to even look at him?

But there was nowhere to run and Sam apparently didn’t need an answer because suddenly he was there, hands on Kevin’s shoulders and Kevin gave in. He couldn’t do this. He reached and Sam reached back, pulling him into a firm chest and strong arms and he couldn’t help but sob even more as Sam whispered all the ways he was sorry into his ear.

‘I’m losing it,’ he found himself sobbing, as though Sam didn’t know that already. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t listen and I’m losing it and it’s all my fault.’

‘Not your fault,’ Sam said, but Kevin didn’t believe him. Just buried his head in Sam’s shoulder and tried to get his crying under control.

‘Really, Kevin, it’s alright,’ Sam said, rubbing his back softly. ‘I ... we haven't lost it yet but if we do, it won’t be your fault.’

‘I didn’t listen to you. I haven’t been resting and I drink too much coffee and I’ve been acting like I’m not even pregnant and now it’s too late.’

‘It’s not too late,’ Sam insisted, but he didn’t have anything to follow it up with. Instead he moved his arms then reached down and lifted Kevin up. Kevin just let him. Why did it matter, he might as well let him do whatever he wanted, it was too late.

Sam carried Kevin into the bedroom and lay him back down on the bed, moving him to lay on his side and then, after a second, laying down behind him and pressing close, putting a reassuring arm around him. Kevin let himself just feel it for a second, though he still couldn’t get the crying stopped. It was the closest he’d been to a human being since, well, since the last time he and Sam had been this close. Then Sam’s touch had stopped the pain, made everything seem wonderful.

He wished that was still true now.

***

'So, something was controlling you,' Dean said, dumping his cans of spraypaint and his knife, wiped, in the Impala's trunk. Cas was standing a few feet behind him, hands in his pockets, the picture of an awkward angel again. Not the cold-eyed automaton that Dean had been terrified was going to watch him bleed out on a dirty floor.

'That ... is one way of putting it,' said Cas. He sounded ashamed. Hesitant, although that wasn't exactly new for Cas these days. Guy'd been lying since he got out of Purgatory. Dean couldn't say for sure that he was lying now, though - just that he wasn't quite definite. Maybe something was still off, somewhere.

'What would your way of putting it be, then?' Dean asked, shutting the trunk and turning around. He put his hands in his pockets. 'C'mon, Cas. Something went on back there. Tell me what it was.'

'Heaven is ... Heaven is reorganising, I suppose,' Cas said, groping for the words. 'Since Michael was trapped, since I - well. It has not been stable in Heaven for some time. Without our Father to guide us, we are like lost sheep.'

'And this reorganisation - what, the new boss was pulling your strings? How? Why?'

Cas shrugged. 'Because I am an angel, and I was behaving erratically. I had to be shown the error of my ways.'

'But -' Dean started, and stopped himself. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know if Cas had seen 'the error of his ways' or if he'd told whoever his new boss was where to shove it. Because on the one hand, he knew for a fact that recalibrated angels, reconditioned ones, like Anna had been - they weren't on his side, and they sure as hell never seemed to be happy about being brought back to the party line. But on the other hand ...

... maybe the future Zachariah tried to show him - the Croatoan virus, Lucifer wearing Sammy wearing a tacky white suit - maybe that hadn't happened, but he'd seen a lot of bits of truth in it, and one of them was what could happen to Cas if he unstrapped his wings. If he Fell.

Dean never wanted to be the cause of anyone's downfall, you know?

'So what are you gonna do now?' he asked instead. 'You gonna go back to Heaven, be part of the revolution? Or are you gonna stay here? Didn't you wanna be a hunter?' He tried to give it the edge of a joke. Cas looked at him with a tiny smile just crinkling the corner of his eyes. He knew Dean too well.

'I have been compromised,' Cas said instead of answering. 'The 'new boss', as you call her - she hasn't let me help you to the best of my capabilities. But there are things I know that I can act upon now.'

'Yeah?' Dean said, suddenly curious. 'What things?'

'The Leviathan Tablet and the Demon Tablet - they aren't the only ones of their kind,' Castiel said. 'Our Father made many, to help guide and teach and warn humanity. There is one that Crowley and Heaven are both searching for desperately - but they must not be allowed to find it.'

'Yeah?' Dean said. 'Which one, Cas? I'll help you - we can find it together, bring it to Kevin -'

'No,' said Cas, stepping forward like he thought he had to physically warn Dean off the idea, stepping into Dean's space. 'No, we have to hide it, if we ever do find it. It's too dangerous to trust to anyone. Too dangerous to read.'

He was fervent about it, Dean could practically see him vibrating with the intensity. 'What tablet is it, Cas? Come on, it can't be that bad.'

'The Angel Tablet,' said Cas, twitching as if he had to look around and check they weren't being overheard. 'We have to keep it safe, Dean.'

'The Angel Tablet? God wrote one of those ... those, like, monster-killing manuals about _angels_?' Dean wanted to reach out and just grab Cas by his shoulders, try and calm him down a little. He hadn't seen the guy this worked up since he'd been on his crusade to find God.

'They are more than instructions on killing and warding,' Cas said, rolling his eyes a little. 'They're histories. But yes. Everything in Creation has its tablet, including angels.'

'I don't see how that's bad,' Dean said. 'I mean, great, but don't we already know how to kill angels, and ward against them, and I'm guessing you know their history - I don't see what the big deal is.'

'Think of what Kevin has already learned from the Demon Tablet,' Cas pointed out. 'How to banish and kill demons, but also how to _shut the gates of Hell_.' Cas's eyes bored into Dean's, clearly willing him to see what he was getting at. 'Now imagine what the Angel Tablet might tell him.'

'Holy crap,' said Dean, suddenly getting it.

'Precisely.'

***

Really what Sam wanted to do was watch Kevin sleep, but he was pretty aware that it would be beyond creepy to do so. He just wanted the reassurance of him there, in a bed not soaked in his own blood, still visibly pregnant.

It had been a while now since Kevin fell asleep. He’d indulged for a while, letting himself be there with Kevin. It had felt ... he didn’t want to think how it had felt. Like they were meant to be like that, that close, that comfortable with each other, that intimate. He knew there was less than no chance of that ever happening and it just … there was just no point thinking about it. Kevin meant more than that now, anyway. More than a try. Whatever he did with Kevin he had to make it work because they were having a baby.

He had to believe they were still having a baby.

To keep himself from hovering like some kind of creeper he went out into the main boat, leaving Kevin’s door open a crack so he’d hear if he started to wake up, and tidied.

He’d known it was going to be bad, but he hadn’t known it was going to be this bad. There were so many coffee cups hidden around the place, so many empty packets in the bins, it was horrible. Kevin had clearly been pushing himself too hard if this was anything to go by. There was the painkillers, too. Sam had wanted to punch something when he found them. Giant bottles stacked in the back of cupboards. Kevin shouldn’t need that many, shouldn’t be hurting himself like that.

Honestly, he’d been pretty angry. Kevin wanted to hurt himself, fine, but that wasn’t what he was doing here. He was hurting their baby too. _Their_ baby. A kid who deserved to live, deserved everything they could give it in life and probably more because that didn’t really amount of much.

Before he could work up a proper anger, though, he thought about Kevin clinging to him, sobbing. As though he’d only just realised what the hell was going on. He didn’t exactly blame the kid, things were weird and it was a lot to take in but still...

Kevin had been trying to help, he needed to keep that in mind. He’d never meant this. If Sam was going to get angry at anyone, getting angry at himself would be better. He’d been the one to fuck Kevin without a condom. He’d been the one to come barging in here with a relic they knew nothing about. He should have taken better care of Kevin, made it clear to him that he was more important than the tablet.

Though the tablet was pretty important too. He wasn’t ignorant about what the trials were doing to Dean. He wanted them over, just not at this cost.

Something was going to have to change.

He heard Kevin move and deposited the last of the mugs in the sink. He’d wash them later, he’d be angry later. Right now there were more important things.

‘Kevin,’ he said, softly, putting his head into the bedroom. ‘You awake?’

‘Yeah,’ Kevin said, and he sounded rough. He looked rough too, eyes still swollen from all the crying. But he seemed calm. For now, at least.

‘How are you feeling?’ Sam asked, daring to step into the room. Kevin looked down, thoughtful, laying his hand on his still swollen belly.

‘Better. I don’t ... I mean, I’m not cramping like I was before. I feel better. Can you bring me some water?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Sam said, shuffling back out of the room and over to the sink. He had to shove a few coffee cups out of the way get to the faucet properly which made him angry again but he pushed it down. This wasn’t the place or time.

When he came back into the room Kevin was sitting up, a pleased smile on his face and a hand on his belly. He took the glass of water and grinned.

‘I just checked, everything’s back to normal with me again. I think, maybe, we got lucky this time.’

‘Lucky is the word for it,’ Sam agreed, sitting on the bed. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Sam, I know my own body,’ Kevin said, and he seemed happier than Sam had been him in so long. ‘I’m normal again or, well, as normal as a pregnant dude can be. No way for baby to get out so it’s going to have to stay in there.’

‘Thank you,’ Sam whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he was thanking. He reached for Kevin but stopped, he wasn’t meant to, but Kevin reached out and guided his hand the rest of the way to lay on the bump.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kevin whispered. ‘I’ve not ... I’ve not been taking care of myself, and that hasn’t been fair on our baby, but that all changes now. It has to. Things are going to get better.’ Sam couldn’t help grinning. It was weird but he felt like he’d never heard Kevin say that before, not so calmly and matter of factly. Their baby. They were having a baby. It was really happening, he was going to be a dad and it was going to be theirs, they were going to do this.

‘Why are you grinning?’ Kevin asked, amused.

‘Because we’re having a baby,’ Sam said, simply. ‘Our baby.’

‘Yeah, yeah we are.’

‘Our baby.’

‘Our baby,’ Kevin confirmed, and Sam wasn’t sure which of them started it but they were kissing, kissing like their lives depended on it all over again and damn, he wanted to do this forever. Maybe ... maybe they could make this work now. Maybe between them they could make it work.

‘I take it you’re feeling better,’ Sam jerked back and looked up, wide eyed, to find Mrs Tran in the doorway and Dean loitering behind her.

***

Dean had met Mrs Tran just outside the houseboat. Cas had dropped him off, despite his protests that he could just hotwire something and make his own way back, and he'd run into Mrs Tran just after noticing that Sam had left his baby unlocked on the side of the road. She looked pretty mad.

He'd had to duck a lot of questions, too. He figured they weren't his to answer. He couldn't blame her for having high-tailed it up here, though, so he opened the houseboat's door and let her in before him. She stalked straight to Kevin's bedroom.

Dean was mentally prepared for the worst. It was a state of mind he was kind of used to. What he wasn't prepared for was to overhear Sam saying 'Because we're having a baby. Our baby.'

Mrs Tran finally came to a stop in the bedroom door and Dean caught up enough to look over her shoulder. Sam and Kevin were necking like teenagers.

'I take it you're feeling better,' Mrs Tran said. Kevin and Sam sprang apart like they'd been tasered. It would have been funny if Dean hadn't been damn well trying to get them to sort their shit for months. He didn't want them spooked now, after all his hard work.

'Thank God,' he said, interrupting before anyone could start shouting. 'Kevin, buddy, how're you holding up?'

'The cramps have stopped,' he said awkwardly, still darting little glances at his mom, and at Sam. He didn't look great, frankly - his face was too thin and his baby bump was pretty goddamn obvious under his shirts. Dean tried to imagine how Kevin must look to his mom, and winced. If that was Sam, if this was the first time he'd seen Sam in over a year and he looked like that -

Mrs Tran rounded on Dean. 'Out,' she said. 'You and your brother. Get out. I need to talk to my son.'

'Mom -'

'I'm going,' said Sam in a low voice. He traded one last look with Kevin, but then squared his shoulders and pushed past Mrs Tran and Dean and straight back out to the door.

'I'll talk to you later,' Mrs Tran told Dean, and it wasn't exactly a threat but it was definitely a dismissal. Dean found himself obeying without even thinking about it. 'Don't go anywhere.'

'Yes ma'am,' said Dean, and followed his brother out.

Sam was sitting on the hood of the Impala, long legs tucked up so he could rest his chin on his knees.

'So I take it you two are doing better then,' said Dean, sliding up next to him. 'Is he really gonna be okay?'

'Seems like it,' Sam said. He shrugged. 'He says he's stopped having cramps, and stopped bleeding, and the ... the place he was bleeding from has closed back up again.'

'That's ... good?'

'Yeah. I don't exactly know how it works but .. yeah. Seems good?'

They sat in silence for another moment or so. 'And you and him?' Dean asked. 'You seemed, uh. Friendly.'

'I dunno, Dean,' said Sam, staring at his hands. 'I don't wanna jinx it.'

'So there's something there to jinx?'

'I swear, if you give me shit about this after all -'

Dean held his hands up in a 'whoa, whoa' motion. 'No shit, Sammy, I swear. I just want you to be happy.'

Sam looked over at him a little sadly. 'I know,' he said. 'I want you to be happy too, Dean. I want us to get through all this.'

'Yeah, well,' said Dean. 'I'll be happy when Kevin's not mysteriously bleeding and when the gates of Hell are good and shut.' Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mrs Tran emerging from the houseboat. She strode up to them with an angry look on her face and Dean winced. Looked like all his hard work was going to be for nothing.

‘What have you been doing to him?’ she asked, coming to a stop in front of them. ‘He’s obviously ill, how did you let him get into that state?’

‘Calm down,’ Dean said, stepping in quickly to play peacekeeper. If she got really pissed at one of them, he’d rather it be him than Sam. ‘I hate to tell you this, but Kevin’s a grown man, we can’t make him eat. We tried, we brought him food, but we can’t sit here and force him.’

‘You can’t but I can,’ she said. ‘Why did you even leave him alone in the first place?’

‘We’re kind of trying to close the gates to Hell,’ Dean explained. ‘It’s a big deal.’

‘Not big enough of a deal to risk Kevin over,’ she protested.

‘We know that now, ma'am,’ Sam interrupted, looking just the right mix of adorable and contrite. Mrs. Tran didn’t seem to be buying it.

‘Well, you don’t get a second chance now. I’m staying here and I’m not leaving until this is all over. If you can’t take care of Kevin, then I will.’

‘Alright, that’s fine,’ Dean jumped in quickly. ‘But we’re still going to need to see him.’ Better try to salvage what he could out of this mess. Mrs Tran staying with Kevin might not be a bad idea anyway. He clearly needed someone to make him eat and, yeah, maybe they had been kind of doing a shitty job at that. Though he'd hoped this entire mess might scare Kevin in to taking better care of himself.

‘If it were just me I’d tell you to go to Hell, but it’s not. Kevin says he needs you to come back, so you can, but I’m in charge now. You don’t get to talk to him without me being there.’ She folded her arms and stared at them, pretty much defying them to argue.

‘Mrs Tran ...’ Sam started.

‘I’m done,’ she spat, then turned and walked back into the houseboat. Sam and Dean both stayed where they were for a few minutes, digesting that.

‘You think she was serious?’ Sam asked, finally.

‘Yeah, I’d say she was,’ Dean replied. ‘Though, you know, when she’s had time to cool down she’ll be more sensible.’

‘Yeah, probably,’ Sam agreed, but he didn’t look convinced.

***

They drove away from the houseboat and Sam tried to settle into the Impala's familiar leather seat and get his mind back on topic with trials and the gates of Hell, tried to mentally summarise what he knew, what he'd need to know - what to look for when they got back to the batcave and he had that glorious library at his fingertips again.

He should be glad. Everything had technically gone exactly the way it should - Kevin seemed to be better, he had someone looking after him, and they .. seemed to be on better terms again. Good enough terms that Sam kept shying away from even thinking about it in case he jinxed himself or something.

But it just felt wrong to be driving away. If Sam was honest, what he wanted to do was bundle Kevin into the Impala with them and take him back to the bunker. That way, they'd all be together. That's all Sam wanted, really. The bunker was becoming _home_ a lot faster than he could even process, and if he could just fill it up with _family_ , all the people he needed to look after in one place ... him and Dean, Kevin, maybe Cas ... and a baby ...

Sam mentally rolled his eyes. _You have a job to do, Sam Winchester,_ he told himself. _You can build castles in the air later._ He forced himself to look out the window at the scenery flashing by, trying to reach that clarity of mind that he needed to focus on the task at hand - namely, trials. Research. Not playing happy families.

There was a sudden buzzing in his pocket that startled him out of his half-daze. He scrambled to answer it, suddenly worried that the universe was going to dump something bad on them now that they'd almost got things straightened out. Maybe a job somewhere far away, something they couldn't ditch ...

'Yeah?' he said when he finally managed to fumble to pick the call up.

'Sam?' It was Kevin, practically whispering on the other end.

'Kevin? You okay? What's wrong?' Sam asked, sitting forward, suddenly wide awake and not daydreaming at all. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean stiffen, clearly on alert already.

'Nothing, nothing,' Kevin hissed. 'I just don't want my Mom to hear me. She thinks I'm in the can.'

'Then why -?'

'I love my Mom,' said Kevin urgently, interrupting him. 'She's amazing, and terrifying, and I'm really lucky that she hasn't completely disowned me over all this supernatural crap, let alone the whole illegitimate, biologically impossible man-baby thing, but I just want you to know that I meant it. Earlier. This is _our_ baby, Sam. I know Mom probably tried to scare you off and I'm pretty sure she's gonna chaperone the hell out of us, maybe for the rest of my natural life, who knows, but she's not the boss of me and she's sure as hell not the boss of you and I just -' he took a breath, which he probably sorely needed, '- I'm not gonna let her keep us apart. I'll make her see. I want you around, and this baby's gonna need you to ... I dunno, be its father. Other father.'

Sam laughed, some of the weight abruptly lifting from his shoulders. 'Don't worry, I will be,' he said. 'Whatever you need, Kevin, I'm there, you know that. Your Mom's just worried about you. Tell you the truth, it's a load off my mind knowing someone's there to bully you into eating,' he added, trying to tease.

He could imagine the scowl when Kevin replied, 'Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna eat, I swear.'

'And the coffee?'

'I solemnly swear I will cut that back.'

Sam wanted him to stop drinking it entirely, but he knew enough not to push. 'Good. Look. We're only going back to the bunker. I've always got my phone, Keep in touch, okay? And not just about tablet stuff.'

'Baby stuff too?'

'Baby stuff too. I want to know everything.'

'Control freak. You'd better not turn into one of those ridiculous parents with the one-track mind who thinks everyone else wants to know about their kid's bowel movements,' Kevin said threateningly. Then there was the distant sound of someone else talking. 'Crap, I'd better go, she wants to talk about vitamins or something.'

'See, it's good for you.'

'Ha ha. I gotta go.'

'Bye,' said Sam, trying not to sound wistful.

Kevin probably hadn't picked up on it. He sounded a bit harassed when he said 'Bye' as well, but that was probably because Sam could still hear his mom talking at the other end as well.

'So when am I organising the baby shower for?' Dean asked. He'd settled back into his usual lazy, comfortable driving position, presumably when it became obvious Kevin wasn't having some kind of emergency.

'Bite me,' Sam retorted, but he couldn't help smiling to himself as he tucked his phone away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the following content that may be upsetting or triggering for readers:
> 
> \- Near-miscarriage  
> \- Suicidal actions (for the purposes of Trials)
> 
> Everyone lives through both of these things, but there's a reasonable amount of talking about blood.


	4. Third Trimester

His alarm was sat for 8am. His mom kept creeping in during the night and switching it off but he still set it anyway. He hated oversleeping, though it wasn’t really an issue now. Not when he was apparently pregnant with some kind of gymnast baby who was working up for the Baby Olympics inside him. That wasn’t even mentioning the aching and shit, because he didn’t mention the aching. If he mentioned it to his mom she did this weird passive-aggressive thing that was halfway between hovering and complaining at him about how much harder her own pregnancy had been. If he mentioned it to Sam then Sam would get all sad and quiet and he got that, because he wanted Sam to be here to rub his feet or whatever you did with pregnant people too, but there were circumstances.

This morning the alarm did go off and he got up with a grumble. His mom was already awake, sipping coffee in the main area of the boat and he watched her enviously. She hadn’t _banned_ him from coffee, not really. She just made his life hell if he drank it.

He got a glass of water and headed for the bathroom.

Eight and a half months now and he looked like a beached whale. He had to admit he looked a lot less like he might drop dead any moment than he had before his mom came. He took the time to shave, when people saw him now they tended to just look at the bump and see a woman regardless of whatever else he had on show, so that kind of worked to his advantage. Not that he got out much, but he liked to be ready just in case. As he shaved baby woke up and started shifting and he groaned.

It had been really novel, at first, having a baby move in him. It was weird but, on the scale of things he put up with every day, it didn’t even rate. He’d phoned Sam the first time he’d felt it and Sam had dropped what he’d been researching and driven over, risking his mom’s glares to come poke at Kevin’s stomach though the kicks weren’t strong enough for him to feel them yet. The novelty had long since worn off, though, and Kevin was ready for baby to be turning somersaults outside him. Like, in a crib or something.

He went back out and his mom put breakfast in front of him and started grilling him on his signs and symptoms. He only lied like, half the time. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and he was fine. She then settled in to read a book and left him with the tablet.

She hated the tablet. He knew she hated that he still even gave it consideration after what it had done to him, seeing as the passing out and the miscarriage-that-wasn’t had both coincided with finding the trials. He had to try, though.

Lunch was eaten and then his mom went shopping and Kevin could have sung for joy. He dropped the research for now and headed to the bedroom, digging out his phone and putting in the call to Sam.

Sam … Sam hadn’t been around as much as either of them wanted. At least he knew Sam wanted to, now, it was just that his mom didn’t approve. She didn’t seem to like Sam, she definitely didn’t like that Sam had knocked him up, she didn’t like any of it and she mainly expressed that by getting really angry at Sam whenever he did turn up and making it really difficult for them so, in general, the phone calls were easier.

Sam sounded happy to hear from him, as always. They talked for about half an hour about baby and just generally life. It was nice, kind of made Kevin wish Sam was here so he could lean over and lay his head on his shoulder, but he couldn’t say that.

After the call he went back to the tablet and managed another thirty minutes before his mom came back and forced him to go lie down for his health. He kind of got that, but he was pretty sure he didn’t need it now. Dropping this baby earlier would only be a plus at the moment, maybe then people would stop treating him like spun glass.

Mom made him mac and cheese for dinner. They ate it in bed and watched some sitcoms on his laptop until she declared it time for him to sleep and moved out to the main room. He dug out the novel he kept under his mattress and read to himself until he was actually tired.

It wasn’t a bad day.

***

Sam was sitting at the little dining table in their current motel room, clicking through websites on his laptop (email, local police sites, news websites, paranoid occultist blogs, all the usual stuff) and pretending he couldn't hear Dean pretending he wasn't coughing up blood in the tiny bathroom.

Dean refused to talk about it. Sam didn't like it, but he wasn't going to push. So he did what he'd done with Kevin earlier on - he lurked, and tried to figure out a way to help that wasn't going to chase them away. So far he didn't have much of a plan but he was getting lots of practice on his poker face.

'Morning,' said Dean, coming out of the bathroom.

'Hey,' said Sam. 'How you feeling?'

'Awesome.' Dean rolled his eyes. 'Anything coming up over the radar?'

They were looking for a job, supposedly, because since they'd left Kevin with his mom there hadn't been much progress on the tablets, and Dean was climbing the walls without something to do. Sam, however, kind of didn't want his big brother out getting whaled on by evil things, so he'd been ... creatively filtering potential jobs and sending the ones that looked like they might end with Dean getting slammed up against walls to Garth instead.

'Uh, ghost of a little girl haunting a kindergarten in North Carolina?'

'What is it with the plague of underage ghosts lately?' Dean asked, dragging his duffle over to where he was sitting on the bed and lining up his weaponry for the usual morning check. 'Seems like we haven't had a decent hunt of something corporeal -' he made a face at Sam, '- in months.'

'I dunno,' Sam shrugged, keeping his expression as neutral as he could. 'Just one of those things I guess.'

'Yeah, well. Alright, are we hitting the road then?'

***

They were on the road by the time Kevin called. He usually managed to at least text Sam once a day, but calls had to wait until his mom wasn't there. Sam totally got why she was less than impressed with him, and he was really happy she was there to look after Kevin, but he couldn't help resenting the fact that she made it this difficult for them to even talk.

'Hey, Kevin, how are you?' Sam asked when he picked up the phone. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dean start to eavesdrop. His ears practically pricked up. At least one of them had a supportive relative, he supposed.

Up ahead, Sam could see a sign for a roadside diner. Sure as clockwork, Dean indicated to pull over. They hadn't had lunch yet.

'I'm good,' said Kevin. 'I'm the size of a house and this baby thinks it's a kangaroo, I swear, but yeah. Everything's fine.'

'That's great,' Sam said, smiling. Dean pulled up in the parking lot of the diner, turned the engine off. He raised an eyebrow, but Sam waved him off. Dean could go order some lunch - he was busy. He'd get his later. Once Dean had gone, Sam asked Kevin, 'Uh, you had any more luck with the third trial?'

He hated to ask. He really did. But his brother was _coughing up blood._

'Not really,' Kevin said on the other end. 'You know I'll let you know as soon as I do, right?'

'Yeah, I know,' Sam said, biting his lip.

'I know it's slow going,' Kevin said, 'but I'm kind of distracted at the moment. Once I've, y'know, given birth, maybe it'll go a bit faster. I mean, the gates of Hell are already open, Sam, another month or so isn't gonna make that much difference, is it?'

He sounded like he was quoting, and Sam thought he knew who'd probably said it to start with. And it was a good point, except ...

'Maybe not to Hell,' he said, biting his lip. 'But Dean's ... he's not doing so good, Kevin.'

‘What do you mean, not doing so good?’ Kevin asked, his voice sharp. ‘I thought you said you guys were okay? I spoke to Dean like a week ago and he seemed fine.’

‘That’s the thing, it’s not like Dean’s talking about it,’ Sam said with a sigh. ‘You know how he is, feels like he’s got to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he’s in a pretty bad way. I know he’s coughing up blood and, well, who knows what I don’t know, right? I don’t … I’m just worried about him.’

‘Shit,’ Kevin said, exasperation clear in his voice. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sam said, shrugging though he knew Kevin couldn’t see it. ‘I didn’t want to stress you, not when you were still so ... but I’m really worried.’

‘It has to be bad to get you worried,’ Kevin replied. ‘I wish you’d told me how important this was earlier. I’ll ... I’ll work something out.’

‘Don’t kill yourself over it,’ Sam said, and fuck but he was damned either way. Kevin laid off and Dean got sicker, Kevin worked harder and, what, he’d go back to living on caffeine and pain killers? There had to be a middle road.

‘I won’t,’ Kevin assured him. ‘Look, my mom’s here. At the least she’s going to make sure I eat but it’s really ... it’s complicated. She doesn’t like me working on the tablet and I get that, I do, but it’s not worth risking Dean for.’

Sam didn’t say anything - he wasn’t sure what to say. Of course he didn’t want to risk Dean, he never wanted that, but at the same time he didn’t want to risk Kevin. He’d lain awake so many nights thinking on ways to keep them both safe, but it seemed to come back to the same things again and again. Kevin was going to have to work harder to save Dean.

‘Anyway,’ Kevin said, and there was a false cheerfulness in his voice. ‘I’m kind of done with this being pregnant thing anyway. If finding the trial makes the baby arrive quicker it won’t necessarily be a bad thing.’

‘Don’t think like that,’ Sam protested. ‘You’re going to be fine. Don’t push yourself too hard, just maybe a little harder than now?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kevin said with a dry laugh. ‘I’ve got this. You just keep Dean alive long enough for me to work out what you need to do.’

‘I will,’ Sam said, glancing over at the diner. He still couldn’t see Dean. For a second he wished he’d never brought it up, that he’d let Kevin talk to him about their kid but, no, it had to be said. Even if he really hated that it had to be said.

‘Hey,’ Kevin said, his voice low. ‘Everything’s going to be alright, Sam. We’ll fix this.’

‘I know,’ Sam said. ‘Things just got so complicated. I just … tell me something nice?’

‘I’m not sure I can do nice but I can provide any number of anecdotes about not being able to see my own feet,’ Kevin said with a small laugh, and they were back on safe ground.

***

'Dean,' said Cas. Dean whipped around, cabinet full of pie choices forgotten.

'Cas? What are you doing here?'

Cas had his hands shoved into his coat pockets. He shrugged. 'I've reached an impasse in my search for the Angel Tablet. I thought I would see if you had got any further in your trials.'

'Kevin's working on it, but he's kind of distracted,' Dean said. 'His mom's looking after him. And me and Sam are ... well, at the moment we're kinda stuck in some kind of jailbait ghost kick.' He made a face. 'Sam's getting awful cagey about the jobs he'll let me work.'

'He is trying to keep you safe,' Cas pointed out.

Dean sighed. 'Yeah, well. Shutting the gates of Hell isn't gonna be safe. He's gonna have to let it go sooner or later, and frankly I'm getting bored with burning haunted teddy bears. If these trials are gonna take me down, I'd rather have a last few decent hunts before I go.'

Cas gave Dean a long, slow look. 'Your brother is smarter than you, sometimes,' he said, and then looked up suddenly, almost startled, over Dean's shoulder.

Dean turned around. Sam had come through the door. There was a flapping noise, and Dean mentally slapped himself in the forehead.

'Was that Cas?' Sam asked, squinting.

'Yeah, it was,' Dean said. 'Can't take your eyes off the guy for a second or he disappears. He's like a ninja in a cheap suit.'

'What'd he want?'

'Checking up on us, I think. Dude's twitchy lately. Kinda like you.'

Sam scowled for a fraction of a second. 'Guess we've both got things to worry about,' he said. Then he shrugged. 'Hungry?'

Dean wasn't, but then he hadn't been for a few days, and he needed to put something in his gut even just so that he had something to chuck up later that wasn't stomach lining. 'I could eat,' he said.

Sam gave him a look, but didn't say anything - just sat down and picked up a menu. Dean was pretty sure he wasn't fooling his brother one tiny bit, to be honest. But he wasn't just going to break down and start caring and sharing. He had to stay strong, keep focused, or this whole thing could fall apart.

He ordered apple pie for lunch, and Sam didn't say a word.

***

'I don't want you working on the tablet any more,' was what Kevin's mom decided to open breakfast conversation with, and Kevin blinked.

'Excuse me?'

'You're too far along, we can't risk you having complications given we're apparently not allowed medical help.' His mom made a face but she patted his hand across the table, so it clearly wasn't him she was mad with. 'Can't we just take the next few weeks easy, Kevin?'

Kevin looked over at the tablet where it was lying innocuously on the table. He’d spent hours on it after talking to Sam yesterday. He could feel the third task pushing at the corner of his mind, he knew it was close and he was pretty sure that reaching it was going to hurt him, probably force the birth and, alright, so maybe he was a little afraid of that.

His mom, she meant well, but she kept reading birthing scare stories on the internet and she said she was doing it so she’d know what to do when the worst happened (not if) and he knew she was just worrying in her own way, but the faces she made when she read them, and then later she’d look at him and sigh until he asked and she’d tell him about childbirth ripping people open and about stitches and about babies dying on the way out and damn, like just thinking about how much it was going to hurt wasn’t bad enough. He wasn’t going to have any proper pain killers, and he was back to just wanting this to not be happening.

But now there was Dean. Dean has always done his best for him, always tried. Kevin knew this entire thing would have been a lot harder without Dean. He’d been calm, generally positive, helped him and Sam get this shit together. He looked so excited whenever they talked about the baby, you’d almost think it was his.

If Kevin pushed himself he’d he hurrying on the birth and for all his joking about being ready, he wasn’t. But if he put it off Dean might never get to see his niece or nephew. He owed Dean better than that.

‘I’m sorry, mom,’ he said, standing up and moving over to lay a hand on the table. ‘I need to do this.’

‘We’ve talked about this, Kevin. It’s only a few weeks, it’s not like anything big’s going to happen.’

‘Sam’s worried,’ Kevin explained. ‘He think’s Dean’s doing a lot worse than he’s telling us. It might … I just need to do this.’

‘If Sam was any kind of man at all he’d tell you to put yourself first,’ his mom said, and she was angry now, standing and crossing her arms over her chest. ‘It’s not your job to take care of Dean Winchester. It’s your job to have a healthy baby, and you can’t do that if you’re worrying all the time. You keep telling me Sam cares about you, well, if that's true, why isn’t he putting you first?’

‘He think’s Dean’s dying,’ Kevin said, and he’d been hoping not to say it, as though avoiding the words would make them not real. ‘Or he wouldn’t ask. I owe this to Sam and Dean.’

‘You don’t owe them anything,’ his mom said, moving closer and grabbing his arm. ‘Kevin, you don’t owe them. They owe you, they did this to you!”

“No, they didn’t,” Kevin said, stepping back. “This … this life isn’t what I wanted but I’m a prophet, it was always coming for me. Dean and Sam have helped me, they’re going to carry on helping me. But if I don’t do this now and Dean does die, I’ll always ask myself if I couldn’t have done more - you get that, right? I’ll spend the rest of my life asking if the reason Sam hasn’t got a brother and our kid hasn’t got an uncle is because of me.’

His mom was quiet for a few seconds, staring at the tablet, then she turned and looked him sharply in the eye.

‘Let’s just run, Kevin. These boys, they’re only going to hurt you. You know the protection spells now, we can keep safe. Move a million miles away, start new lives. We can tell people the baby’s mine, you can go back to school. Please, Kevin. Please. You deserve so much more than this.’

He hadn’t expected that, and for a second he froze, thought about it. Thought about running (though he knew it would never work) and normality and school and … and how the hell was he ever meant to do that now knowing what he knew? How was he meant to be normal again? He couldn't turn his back on all of this.

He hadn’t talked to Sam about what happened after the baby was born yet, it was too big to think about for now, but he knew that whatever he did it wasn’t going to be normal, and he wasn’t giving up his baby. Not ever. Not now.

He gently pushed his mom’s hand off his arm and sat down, gripping the tablet tight and forcing himself to focus. He had to do this. For Dean and for Sam and for his baby and any chance of a life, no matter how abnormal.

He had to do this.

***

Four hours later, and Kevin's mom had gone shopping, he guessed in silent protest of his ignoring her. Or maybe because they were out of something. He didn't know - he didn't care. There was something in the words on the tablet, somewhere under the pain of concentrating so hard.

He shifted in his chair, trying to loosen the grip his fingers had on the clay before they cramped up, trying to get some feeling back in his legs. After all this time he was was used to the headache, at least.

When the first word got dragged up, he was almost unsurprised that it said 'blood'. Everything seemed to come back to blood. _Everything_.

Whose blood, though? Or what. What else had to bleed?

He rubbed a hand over his watering, sore eyes, and squinted again, trying to force the rest of the trial to be readable. But it wasn't coming without a fight, he realised. Why did this thing have to be so hard? What was the point of writing something that half-killed the only person who could read it? He was cramping all over now, it felt like - and inside his belly, the baby could clearly feel it too, if the sudden kicking was anything to go by.

Come on, Kevin, he told himself. Just get it done, and then you can go and lie down and put the tablet away, and your mom will be happy and Sam and Dean will be able to get on with their lives too. Just a little more. Just a little more -

'Kevin?' his mom said from somewhere behind him, the houseboat door banging shut. 'Sweetie, how's it going?'

'Sshhh,' Kevin hissed through gritted teeth. 'Nearly there -'

'Kevin -'

'Go away,' he growled, desperate not to get any more distracted. 'I've almost got it, just - just go -'

The tablet felt like it was shaking in his grip, although that was probably him shaking, really, he thought fuzzily. The baby was really unhappy. He hurt in his abdomen, low down. His head was pounding. But he nearly had it, nearly, nearly, he just had to push a little harder still … and there it was.

He shouldn't have been surprised. 'Demon's blood?' he managed to say

'Kevin?' His mom sounded pissed.

Kevin passed out.

***

Normally Sam was in favour of keeping to the speed limit. It existed for a reason and he knew Dean resented it but it really was the kind of thing you should respect. Right now he wished Dean would just put him down foot down. He’d never hated the fact that Kevin had refused to move in to the Men of Letters bunker with them more than he did now.

If Kevin had just moved in then he’d never have been on the end of a screaming phone call from Linda Tran about how Kevin had passed out and he wouldn’t wake up and it was all Sam’s fault. It was, honestly, the kind of life experience he could live without. Sure, he’d have had to live with her as a constant in his home for months but maybe that would have given him a chance to prove to her that he was a good guy, that he was taking this seriously and he wanted to help.

But Kevin hadn’t wanted to move. Kevin had wanted to focus and he’d worried about misplacing notes and he’d said he’d never get anything done if they were slamming in and out of the place all the time and he’d kind of not wanted to deal with his mom fighting with them every day so he hadn’t moved.

He hadn’t moved, and Sam had taken _that_ phone call.

Mrs Tran had been just about coherent enough to mention the tablet and if the idea of Kevin passed out on the floor hadn’t been enough to get them moving the tablet would have. The end to all this, closing the gates to Hell. That was all Sam wanted.

Then he might finally have a chance at normal.

But not if it had been too much, not if it actually _had_ killed Kevin this time. He couldn’t cope with that, coming so closer and losing everything again. Not Kevin and not their baby.

It seemed to take an age, he swore the car was barely moving, but they made it to the house boat. Sam didn’t even wait for Dean to fully stop, just took his seat belt off and threw himself out of the car and down the steps in to the house boat. His mind was full of Kevin dead, dying, bleeding out.

He came to a stop in the living room as his eyes rested on Kevin. Kevin, who was awake. Kevin, who looked awful. His skin was pale, his eyes sunken. He seemed thinner and smaller somehow, though maybe that was just in relation to the massive expanse of his stomach and, alright, it had been awhile since Sam had seen him and he’d gotten big. It took Sam’s breath away for a second just how big he’d gotten, just how close they were.

‘Sam,’ Kevin said, and he sounded almost glad. Sam grinned, stepping forward. He looked like hell but Kevin was here and sat up and talking and _here_ right in front of Sam.

‘Oh, now you’re here,’ Mrs Tran said, and Sam turned to see her standing across the room in the small kitchen area. ‘You’re never here when we need you, right?’

‘I came as soon as you called,’ Sam protested, but she was already turning away from him, clearly not listening. He got why she didn’t like him, he really did, but she could at least give him a chance, couldn’t she?

‘I have good news,’ Kevin interrupted. He stood up and Sam and Mrs. Tran both took a step forward together then stopped when they realised the other had moved to. After a few seconds Sam stepped back and Mrs. Tran rushed to Kevin’s side but he just batted her away, giving both of them odd looks.

‘Yeah, no,’ he said, moving over to his wall of notes. ‘I found the last trial.’

‘Well, thank fuck for that,’ Dean said, and Sam was pretty happy for him to break the tension just then, coming down the stairs into the boat. 'What is it?'

'Blood again,' Kevin said. 'It's probably symbolic. But anyway, yeah. Blood.'

'What do I have to bleed this time?' Dean asked. Looking between them, Sam wasn't happy about the similarities he could see - shadows under their eyes, the way their clothes weren't sitting right, the tones of their skin. Neither of the two people Sam was supposed to be looking after were doing okay.

Kevin shrugged, wrapped his arms around himself over the baby bump. 'Demon,' he said. 'And probably a pretty high-up one. The tablet was kind of … there are nuances, okay. But I'm pretty sure just grabbing someone with black eyes off the street and draining them isn't gonna cut it this time. You need someone powerful.'

Dean's eyes narrowed. 'How about the King of Hell?' he asked.

'Dean, no,' said Sam.

Kevin grinned, catching Dean's drift. That worried Sam even more. 'Yeah, he'd do.'

Oh great. The last thing anyone here needed was a goddamn grudge match. 'Guys, this is stupid. There's no way we'll even get near Crowley,' Sam tried.

'We'll find a way,' said Kevin. Dean nodded.

'Sam's right,' said Mrs Tran, unexpectedly. She stepped up to stand next to Sam, her own arms folded like she was deliberately facing her son off. 'None of you are in any shape to fight something as powerful as Crowley.'

Sam stared at her for a few seconds. This was really the last person he’d expect to have his back but, apparently, he’d done something right for once.

It was a shame it was putting him at odds with Kevin. There was just no way to win in this situation.

‘No, Crowley’s perfect,’ Kevin insisted, gesturing wildly and, screw it all, he looked more alive now then he had in a long time. It was like someone had turned on a light bulb in the kid and this was the most ridiculous idea ever but he didn’t want to do anything to stop Kevin smiling like that. ‘This is the last trial, it needs to be someone big. Someone high in the rankings and Crowley definitely counts as that. You wouldn’t want to go for someone to lowley and mess up everything you’ve done so far.’

‘And we know Crowley,’ Dean interrupted. ‘We know him and we know how he fights. If we have to fight a powerful demon then, hey, better the one you know.’

‘We’ve tried to fight Crowley,’ Sam pointed out. ‘It’s never exactly ended well for us. What makes you think this will end better?’

‘Well, he’s got no way to know we’re coming,’ Dean said with a shrug. ‘We can surprise him? Maybe make him think we want to do a deal then gank him?’

‘Or you could trick him,’ Kevin interrupted, eyes gleaming. ‘Make him think you need the blood for something else and take it from him.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mrs Tran snapped, and a little of the light went out of Kevin as he stilled. Sam kind of just wanted to push her out of the room and tell them to go on, as ridiculous as this plan was. Dean almost looked healthy, caught up in the middle of scheming. Kevin looked happy. He wanted to preserve this.

The problem was that Mrs. Tran was right. This was ridiculous.

‘Kevin, you know Crowley. You know what he’s capable of. What are you thinking, trying to send these boys into fight him? You want them to die now?’

‘No,’ Kevin frowned, bringing a hand to rub at his stomach almost instinctively. ‘Of course not. But...’

‘No buts,’ she said firmly. ‘You certainly can’t fight at the moment. They go after him and he’ll kill them, then he’ll come for us. Is that what you want?’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Sam said, firmly. There was no way he could let that happen.

‘Damn right it won’t,’ Dean growled. ‘Because I’m going to bleed the fucker and shove him back in hell where he belongs.’

‘Dean,’ Sam started, but he could already see the excitement in Dean turning in to rage.

‘No. This is enough. I’m going to bleed Crowley with or without your help and I’m going to end this thing. Kevin, where’s the incantation?’

Kevin picked a piece of paper off the table and handed it over. Sam thought about arguing for a second but he knew Dean, knew it would do no good. This was going to be a mess, he just had to make sure he was there to clean up after it.

‘Fine, whatever,’ he sighed, defeated. ‘But we’re doing this smart and we’re calling for backup. No trying to trick him or elaborate schemes, we trap him as well as we can, hit him hard and fast then get the hell out. Got it?’

‘Deal,’ Dean agreed. Mrs Tran had stepped away from him, glaring again, but he could live with that in trade for the way Dean and Kevin were both smiling again.

***

'I just want you to be sure you know what we're getting into here,' Dean said, quirking an eyebrow at his brother. They were out on the deck of the houseboat, while Kevin and Mrs Tran had some kind of family discussion inside. Mrs Tran was still kind of pissed, even though she had to admit that this was kind of their only workable plan. 'I mean, you've seen it too, right? Cas is still way off his game, man.'

'We're going to need the backup,' Sam pointed out. 'Just like last time.'

'Yeah, but … maybe Cas needs the downtime, you know?'

Sam's narrowed his eyes at him. 'Dean. We're talking about the gates of Hell here. You know? Big plan, happy ending, everything Cas wants? He's a soldier, he's our ally, he's our _friend_ , and we need him. You're planning on trying to bleed out the one sneaky fucking cockroach of a demon we still haven't managed to ice. Crowley's clever, and he's strong, and he's got really good resources behind him. We have you, and you're coughing up blood every time you think my back's turned, Kevin, who's the size of a house and still drinking coffee when he thinks his mom's back's turned, Kevin's mom, who has really good reason to hate all our guts, and me, and frankly I am not in the best shape of my life given I have to run around after the rest of you.' He sucked in a big breath, and blew it out as a sigh. 'Dean, please. Call Cas, just one last time.'

Dean really didn't have an argument, after that. Typical Sam. 'Okay,' he said. 'Jeez. Okay.' He scrubbed a hand over his face. 'Cas, buddy? You listening out there? We could … we need your help. Again.'

'I assume this is about the third trial?' Cas said. Dean and Sam both turned around, and he was leaning against the main cabin door. 'Thank you for calling me,' he added.

Sam gave Dean a pointed look that Dean ignored.

‘Yeah, don’t mention it,’ Dean said instead, shifting uncomfortably. Cas took a few steps towards Dean then stopped, staring at him as though he was sure Dean was going to impart some kind of universal wisdom any moment now.

‘How can I be of assistance?’ Cas asked when Dean wasn’t forthcoming with any enlightenment.

‘Well,’ Sam said, stepping forward to break their bubble. ‘Kevin finally found the last trial for us and we think we’re going to have to bleed Crowley.’

‘That is no easy task,’ Cas said with a frown, moving a little closer to Dean again. ‘There is no alternative?’

‘No, there isn’t,’ Dean growled, apparently not wanting to get into that conversation again. ‘We know it’s going to be hard, but it’s gotta be worth it. Don’t tell me you don’t want to make that smug bastard bleed a little too?’

‘I do,’ Cas agreed. 'It isn't a worthy impulse, but I would like to see him pay for his crimes.' He smiled a little. 'You are a bad influence on me.'

‘Or an awesome influence,’ Dean countered, dredging up a tired smile from somewhere. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll fill you in on the plan, or as much of one as we’ve got, on the way.’

***

Kevin slowly ran his hand over the surface of the tablet. It was weird to think he’d done it, that he technically didn’t need to read any more. Sure, there were other things he might pick up if he carried on but what use was a load of intel on demons going to be if they did finally shut the gates of Hell?

For a second he wanted to pick the thing up and throw it on the floor, smash it once and for all, not that throwing it on the floor would be enough to do that. Just as soon as that impulse had passed he wanted to cry, to cling to the damn thing. Now, well, what use was he going to be when they didn’t need the tablet? He knew he’d never be able to go back to a normal life, not really. All he had was this, and now it might be over?

He knew he was being stupid, though. Sam would want him after this, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. Maybe they’d never really talked about it but they were going to have this baby together, raise it together. Weren’t they?

He hoped they were.

He set the tablet down with a sigh. No use thinking about it now. When Sam got back, when he’d had this baby, maybe then they could finally talk.

Speaking of.

He reached down and ran his hand over his stomach. He’d been getting weird aches since he woke up from the tablet. This kind of weird tightness like he needed to go to the toilet really badly, then when he got there he couldn’t. They always faded after a while. He guessed it wasn’t so weird, probably just baby moving or something. He could hardly blame the kid for not exactly being happy right now.

He took one last look at the tablet and turned to go when he felt a weird tightening around his abdomen, like a sudden deep ache radiating up from between his legs to the top of his bump and he gritted his teeth, clutching the chair to steady himself. This pain was nothing, he could do this. He had done this. It was like last time he’d found a trial.

Last time, when he’d nearly lost the baby.

‘Mom,’ he shouted, rubbing at his belly. ‘Mom, help.’

‘What’s wrong?’ she shouted from the kitchen, and she must be really pissed at him if she wasn’t even coming when he shouted like that.

‘I think I’m having a contraction.’

‘It’ll just be Braxton-Hicks,’ she shouted back. ‘It’s too early to go into labour yet, suck it up.’

‘It feels like when I nearly lost the baby,’ Kevin replied, shifting. Rubbing wasn’t really helping, he didn’t know why he’d expected it to. He wondered, vaguely, if it would help if it were Sam’s hands rubbing his stomach.

‘Oh Kevin,’ his mom said, finally sticking her head around the door. ‘It’s probably nothing, I promise. Contractions in the last few weeks are normal. Go walk around a little, you’ll be fine.’

‘Sure,’ Kevin said with a defeated sigh. She was probably right. It was probably nothing. It was already starting to fade, he was going to be fine.

***

'A trap,' said Sam, squinting at Dean a little across the front seat of the Impala. 'That's your grand plan.'

Dean glared at him. 'How else do we a) find Crowley or b) get the son of a bitch to stay still long enough for us to bleed him? We summon him into a trap, same way we always catch demons. I don't get what your problem is, Sam.'

'It seems a little …too easy, perhaps?' Cas ventured, leaning forward from the back seat. 'Perhaps Sam would rather have a bit more detail. I'd be happier if I had more idea of what was expected of me in this scenario, too.'

'We've had demons break out of traps before,' Sam pointed out, glad for Cas's support even if he hadn't been expecting it. 'You're right, we've gotta find him and we've gotta lock him down, but I dunno if the usual summon-them-into-a-devil's-trap procedure is gonna work on something as powerful as Crowley, you know?'

'So we find a better trap,' Dean said, shrugging. 'Either the tablet will have something on it -' Sam may have made a face at that; Dean certainly moved off the topic fast enough, '- or there'll be something in the library back at the batcave. Something that'll stop the King of Hell. Sammy, you trapped Lucifer once, and he's _still down there_. We can take Crowley.'

Sam resisted the urge to laugh, because it's not like the whole Lucifer thing had ended that well, even if it had worked. But when Dean put it like that … maybe they had done things that were harder than dealing with one jumped-up punk-ass ex-crossroads demon …

'Alright,' he said, folding his arms. 'Assume we can find a trap that'll hold him. Assume we can … tie him down or immobilise him to stop him breaking it - gag him, so he doesn't summon an earthquake in Latin or something …what then?'

'He bleeds,' said Dean, hands in his pockets and blatantly playing with one or other of the knives he always had somewhere on him. 'You're acting like you think that's the hard part.'

'Something will go wrong,' Sam said, shrugging. 'Something always goes wrong.'

'I'll be your backup,' said Cas, breaking into the brewing argument again. 'Crowley will not know I'm there, until it's necessary. And if all else fails, no demon flesh can resist an angel's blade. Dean will get the blood he needs, as long as we can build a trap that will hold.'

Dean was looking back at Cas in the rearview mirror. Sam had to resist the urge to cough awkwardly.

'Okay,' he said. 'Well, we'll just have to … build a trap that will hold, then.'

***

This was crazy. He was crazy. He should _never_ have said yes to this, he should have run a thousand miles and never agreed to any of this. They were going to try and trap Crowley and they were trusting him to do it.

They were in so much trouble.

It had been six hours since they left Kevin, six hours and he hadn’t started liking the idea any more than he had when they first said it. Crowley was the last person they wanted to try this on. He was too cunning, too clever and he knew too many loopholes. And, sure, they had more resources now, but that didn’t mean a lot.

They’d come back to the Men of Letters bunker to research, so Sam was researching. These guys were actually insanely organised and had a catalogue of the books that related specifically to trapping demons. Still, that didn’t make it easy.

Cas had helped at first, selecting a small pile as possibly interesting or relevant and dismissing all the others, but then he’d kind of … gone. Just gone, and that right there was what was scaring Sam. They’d never really tried to fight Crowley in close quarters like this and now Cas was acting weird. Dean had told him about the entire ‘controlled by Heaven’ thing and how apparently Cas was free now, but he certainly wasn’t acting free. Or at least not reliable.

It sucked. The entire plan was just ridiculous and Sam wished he could convince Dean there was another way.

With a sigh, he shoved the book he was looking at aside and picked up another. He’d actually found a few interesting things. Tweaks and additions to increase the strength of the binding. It still wouldn’t be perfect but really they only needed to keep Crowley in one place for a short time. Dean was right, the stabbing part shouldn’t be that hard.

Though he couldn’t help but think he might have cursed it now just by thinking that.

He’d almost be tempted to slow down, draw it out and hope Dean changed his mind, but he was pretty sure Dean was throwing up right now and they might not have that time. Better to do it now, even if it was a ridiculous plan.

He just hoped he didn’t mess this up and get them all killed.

***

It turned out that the contractions fading had just been wishful thinking. Kevin couldn't shake them no matter what he tried - sitting up, walking, lying down … they just wouldn't go away. And he wasn't supposed to be taking painkillers, and he'd tried hugging a hot-water bottle to his belly (his mom's suggestion) and that didn't help much either although it was kind of comforting in a weird way.

His mom kept giving him worried sidelong glances she probably thought he wasn't noticing.

So. Probably not Braxton-Hicks contractions then, Kevin thought to himself. Which meant … real contractions? Right? Which meant this baby was coming.

Oh god, I'm having a baby, he thought. Actually having a baby. All the horrific worries about how it was going to get out and all the ways it could go wrong started to come back and haunt him. Before, when he'd thought he was losing the baby, he'd sort of … grown the equipment he needed, until the danger had passed. It had disappeared again, he figured because his body hadn't needed it any more. And that had been freaky, but … he really hoped that had happened again. He needed it again now.

'Kevin?' his mom said when he got up from the chair he'd been curled up in, kind of awkwardly around baby bump and hot water bottle. 'Kevin, sweetie?'

'Bathroom,' Kevin said hurriedly, fleeing.

When the toilet door was locked behind him, he gritted his teeth against yet another contraction coming on and slid his fingers back behind his equipment.

Yep. There it was again.

'Okay,' he said out loud, looking himself in the mirror. 'I guess I'm having a baby, then.'

***

Sam was pretty determinedly trying not to think about all the ways this could go horribly wrong. He didn’t like modifying sigils. He didn’t like the thought of Dean fighting Crowley. He honestly just didn’t like anything about this.

Not that anybody listened to him. Cas had come back when Dean had prayed, citing urgent business, and he’d taken a look at the sigil designs. He’d assured them that, if nothing else, the thing should hold as well as the devil's trap normally did. That wasn’t much of a comfort, especially not from a guy who kept disappearing on mysterious business, but Sam took what he could get.

He laid the brush down on the paint pot lid and stood back to check his handy-work. It had to be a big enough circle that Dean could fight in it, but small enough to give them a real advantage over Crowley.

Even if they got it perfectly sized, perfectly arranged, though, nothing in this came without a risk. Sam just wished he could do something, anything, to make this safer for Dean.

‘I think I’m done here,’ he yelled. Dean stood up across the abandoned warehouse, surveying the sigils he’d been painting on the floor.

‘I’m nearly done too,’ he yelled back, nudging at something with his toe. ‘You want to do a perimeter sweep, just to be on the safe side?’

‘Sure,’ Sam said, though he knew it was mostly just a way of distracting him and killing time until they were ready. He stretched and turned to go when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocked, pausing when he saw Kevin’s name then connecting the call.

‘Kevin,’ he said. ‘You alright?’

‘Not really?’ Kevin replied, and he sounded pretty unsure about it, which Sam definitely didn’t like. He turned and started making his way out of the warehouse; no need for Dean to overhear this conversation if it was going to be bad.

‘Talk to me. Did you read something else on the tablet?’

‘No,’ Kevin assured him. ‘It’s not the tablet. It's me. I … I’m having the baby. Like, now.’

‘You’re having the baby?’ Sam repeated without thinking. ‘But it shouldn’t be here for two more weeks ...’

‘Yeah, I’m not the one you need to tell that to,’ Kevin grumbled. ‘I just … how are things going on your end?’

Sam turned and looked back at the warehouse. He thought about Dean sitting in there painting the sigils, Cas gone again. He knew Kevin’s question for what it was: _Where are you? Can you come to me?_ And he could, and he maybe should. But Dean needed him too.

‘We just drew the devil’s trap,’ he said, softly. ‘We were going to try summoning Crowley but it’s alright, Dean has Cas. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Kevin said with a laugh. ‘You’re really as far as drawing the trap already? That’s awesome.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam agreed. ‘But you need me.’

‘No,’ Kevin said. He sounded resigned and for a second Sam felt like his heart had frozen. Kevin didn’t need him. ‘I don’t need you, Sam. I sure as Hell _want_ you, but you’ve got to save the world, got to take care of Dean. Don’t worry about me. Hell, labour lasts an age according to my Mom, apparently she was more than a day with me. You do what you need to do and then you come here.’

‘Kevin ...’

‘That’s an order,’ Kevin said, and there was definitely a smile in his tone. ‘I’m about to have a baby, I want to have it in a world that’s safe. When you’ve done that for me you can come home. We’ll hold down the fort until then.’

‘Thank you,’ Sam said. ‘You’ll phone me if you need _anything_.’

‘Of course I will,’ Kevin said. ‘Just focus on what you need to do and I’ll talk to you soon. Tell Dean to stab Crowley once for me too.’

‘I will,’ Sam said, clutching the phone tighter. ‘I’ll talk to you later, goodbye.’

‘Bye,’ Kevin said and hung up the phone. Sam stood staring at it for a second, trying to process. Kevin was having the baby right now. It didn’t take a genius to know that even with the good show he’d put on, he was scared. But he was right, Sam had to do this first. And they had to do it quickly, now, so maybe he’d stand a chance to get back in time for his baby being born.

***

The second Sam walked away to take the phone call outside, Dean figured it was Kevin. He kept working. When Sam came back in he had that look on his face - the 'fuck this shit, let's get to work' look.

'What's up?' Dean asked, stashing his paint tins out of the way of potential future carnage as Sam came towards him.

'Kevin's having the baby,' Sam said. 'As in, having the baby right now.'

Dean groped for the Impala's keys in his pocket. 'Dude, you gotta get out of here then. Go back -'

'No,' said Sam, folding his arms. 'I'm more use here - this is … Kevin has his mom. Nothing I can do will make that much difference either way to Kevin except to distract him or whatever. But I can help you, here, with this.'

'I'll call Cas again,' Dean argued. 'Don't you want to be there?'

'Yeah, Dean, I want to be there. But I want to be here for you, too. There are a lot of things I want. The best way to get all of them is to stick with the plan, okay?' Sam made a face like there was something he wasn't saying. 'It's just safer all round if we do this the way we planned.'

Dean looked at his little brother, standing there all determined and righteous, and felt a weird rush of pride. 'Okay Sammy, if that's the way you want to do this.'

And that would have been great, real Hallmark moment, if he hadn't ruined it by coughing up his lungs again.

'We have to get this done,' Sam said, catching Dean before he could double over and fall. 'Is Cas in position?'

'Yeah,' Dean said, feeling like his throat was on fire. Or full of rocks. Rocks that were on fire. 'Everything's good to go.'

'Alright then,' said Sam, and he gently pushed Dean into the centre of their carefully-constructed trap, and handed him his knife. 'Are you ready for this?'

'Born ready,' Dean said, grinning even though he felt like throwing up. Sam gave him a look that said that he could see right through Dean's bullshit, but he bent to light candles and burn the ingredients of the summoning spell all the same.

The ritual was almost soothing in its familiarity. He might not be a lot of help to Kevin right now, but this he could definitely do. He let himself fall into the familiarity of it until he finished his part and stood back, looking up to see if it had worked.

‘Well, hello boys. Missed me?’

***

‘When is Sam going to be here?’ his mom asked when Kevin came out of the bedroom, phone clutched in his hand. She looked kind of tired, drawn, and Kevin wished he could just send her away and do this on his own for both of them. She didn’t need this stress in her life, but he didn’t really have a choice.

‘He’s not,’ he said, letting the phone drop on the table. ‘He’s too busy with the ritual.’

‘What do you mean he’s too busy?’ his mom asked, frowning. ‘He should be here. If he cared, Kevin, he’d be here.’

‘I told him not to come,’ Kevin insisted, though he could tell by the look in her face she didn’t really believe that. ‘Seriously, there’s not a lot he can do here and he’s closing the gates of Hell. That’s more important.’ He’d told himself that, knew when he’d phoned that there was a good chance Sam might not be able to come. Hell, he'd _told_ Sam not to come, he really had - but it still sucked a little. He knew it was the right decision, though. Knew saving the world had to take priority.

Didn’t mean he wouldn’t like Sam to be here to be vaguely competent or rub his back or whatever it was Sam could bring to the event. He could just cope without it.

‘Kevin,’ his mom said, she did didn’t sound happy. ‘We need help.’

‘We’ll be fine,’ he said with a wave. ‘Haven’t you been telling me for months I’ve been overreacting about how hard this is?’

‘Oh, you know I don’t mean that,’ she said exasperatedly. Her expression softened when she looked at him though, and he did know, really. He knew his mom, how she tried to make things work by sheer force of will. He'd known all along that she was just trying to stop him worrying that things could go wrong. ‘This is serious, though,' she said, and bit her lip, like she didn't want to be saying this. 'There could be medical complications. People die giving birth, Kevin.’

Of all the times for his mom to change parenting tactics on him. 

‘Well, I’m pretty sure Sam wouldn’t know how to deal with that either,’ Kevin snapped. He didn’t need this right now, not when he could already feel the build of another contraction inside himself. ‘Just … just help me.’

‘I will,’ she said, stepping forward and grabbing his hand. ‘Of course I will, anything you need.’

***

'I can't say I'm surprised,' Crowley said. He smiled. Dean watched him, waiting for him to make whatever move he was planning, and let Sam do the talking if he wanted to. 'Closing the gates of Hell's a big job, boys - I'm impressed you've got this far. Oh, don't look so shocked,' he added, when neither of them responded. 'I have eyes and ears everywhere - goes with the job - and you two have been getting blood, well, everywhere lately. It's been noticed, let's just say. So I figured you might come after me, eventually.'

'Talk all you want,' Sam said from the shadows. 'You're not getting out of there.'

Crowley looked around. Dean kept moving, stuck inside the circle with him and trying to wait for his moment while ignoring the constant thump and ache of his body. 'No,' Crowley said, as if it was a really interesting puzzle. 'I don't believe I am. But then again, I suspect neither is your brother - at least, not alive,'

Dean was ready for Crowley to strike. But he wasn't prepared for the force of it - going toe-to-toe with an ordinary demon was nothing on this. He managed to turn Crowley's blow away and regroup, set himself again with the knife settled easier in his grip, but Crowley didn't come back fighting.

Instead, he straightened his shirt collar and smiled like a wolf. 'Feeling okay, Dean?' he asked mock-sympathetically. 'You seem a little off your game, mate.'

'I'm not the one trapped by a lick of paint,' Dean pointed out. He feinted left and slammed into Crowley as the demon jerked aside to avoid him. It hurt, God did it hurt, and Dean had to fight down another coughing fit, but he had Crowley pinned. 'Speaking of off your game -'

'Oh, don't flatter yourself,' Crowley said. Dean had him pressed up against whatever invisible force it was that kept demons inside traps like this - but Crowley had his wrist in a vice-like grip. No-one was going anywhere. 'Look at you, Dean, you're a mess. You're dying, sunshine. All I have to do is wait until you cough up your own intestines and Moose over there is overcome with his homoerotic grief, and then I can summon an underling to break the trap. So let's just relax and let it happen, shall we?'

'Dean, you got him?' Sam asked from the sidelines.

Crowley wasn't even struggling - he had Dean's knife-hand pretty much immobilised, and he was smirking into Dean's face like he'd already won, while Dean tried not to choke. But yeah, he had him. 'Yeah,' Dean rasped. 'For now.'

'Alright then,' said Sam, and Crowley stiffened under Dean's weight as there was a flap of wings.

'What the -'

'I have him, Dean,' said Cas, stepping into the trap and grabbing Crowley from Dean's hold. 'But you must hurry.'

Without Crowley to bear him up, Dean was kind of having a hard time standing. He shouldn't have spent all that effort - but then, there wasn't another way, was there? He dragged himself up, choked down the rawness of his throat, and hefted the knife. 'Working on it,' he muttered at Cas. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Sam outside the trap, fidgeting and pacing like there was something he could do.

Crowley was fighting Cas with all his might, it seemed - Cas had one hand clamped over Crowley's mouth and the other looped around his chest, and it looked so fragile but Crowley could barely move, although he was doing his best, hands scrabbling at what he could reach of Cas.

Dean stepped up and took hold of Crowley by the lapels. 'Gonna bleed you dry,' he growled into the demon's face. 'All these years, all the shit you've pulled - now you're finally gonna be part of something good.'

'Save the speeches, princess,' Crowley spat back at him, getting his mouth free of Cas's hold for a moment, and Dean lifted the knife to his throat unsteadily, and cut.

Out came the blood - brown-red and stinking of iron, and Dean pretended he couldn't see Sam turn away jerkily like he was forcing himself to - and with it, black smoke came boiling out as well, battering against the sides of the demon trap like an invisible cylinder up to the ceiling. Dean just stood there, trying to hold himself up while Crowley's vessel died.

He hadn't done it the way his dad taught him - cutting a throat from in front's messy, inefficient, but bathing in blood was what he was supposed to be doing and he definitely managed that. By the time Dean's shirt was soaked through to the skin, Crowley had stopped twitching, stopped everything, and Cas eventually let him drop.

Somewhere up near the ceiling, Crowley's demon … soul, or whatever it was called … was churning. Dean ignored it, for now, and fumbled in his pocket for the piece of paper with the spell written on it. He worked his throat, trying to get enough moisture into it that he could chant without choking.

***

Sam kind of didn’t believe this had actually worked. It shouldn’t have worked, but there was the proof. Crowley’s body on the floor while black smoke circled above it. He’d probably try to return to the corpse soon, slit throat or not, so it was important they finish it all off before then but Dean had it, he was already digging the paper with the incantation on out of his pocket.

They were really doing this.

Sam needed to tell Kevin.

He stepped to the door of the warehouse, just out of range but still in sight of the action as Dean set himself up to recite, and opened his phone. He realised as he tried to dial that his hands were shaking. Still he managed to navigate the contact list and phone Kevin.

The other man picked up on the third ring, just as Dean started to recite.

‘Sam,’ Kevin asked, a question in his tone, and Sam wanted to laugh. He was calling with good news. It had been so long since he’d called with good news.

‘We stabbed Crowley,’ he said in a rush. ‘The circle actually worked and when we killed the vessel it forced him out and Dean’s just finishing up now and I can’t believe we actually did it.’

‘That’s great,’ Kevin said, and he sounded like he meant it. ‘It’s really over?’

‘Nearly,’ Sam said, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yeah, this labour thing would be kind of boring if it wasn’t for the pain,’ Kevin said, and Sam winced because he didn’t like the idea of Kevin suffering. Suffering even more because Sam couldn’t take him to a hospital to get proper pain relief.

‘I’ll be there soon,’ he promised. ‘Just as soon as Dean’s done with this last incantation and it’s all over we’ll head straight back.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kevin said, he sounded almost relaxed. ‘I know you’ll get here as soon as you can. Is Dean nearly done?’

‘Just finishing now,’ Sam confirmed.

And then everything went to Hell.

***

‘Sam?’ Kevin said, panic starting to creep into his tone. It had been nearly three minutes now since Sam last spoke and that was nothing, he knew, but it was also kind of everything as there’d been good news and reassurance and Sam was coming and Kevin wasn’t going to have to do this without Sam - and then Sam had screamed and the line had gone dead. It didn’t help that he’d had a contraction while clinging to the phone, wishing Sam would answer and just wanting this entire thing to be over.

What if Sam was dead? What if it had all gone horribly wrong and at the last minute he’d lost Sam. He didn’t think he could do this on his own.

He looked up to find his mom standing in the door, watching him with a raised eyebrow as he repeated Sam’s name down the phone.

Then there was a scratching and a coughing and Sam was answering and Kevin honestly could have cried.

‘I’m here,’ Sam said, though he didn’t sound so sure. ‘I’m here. It's okay.’

‘What happened?’ Kevin asked, shifting on the bed. ‘Is Dean there? Is he alright?’

‘Yeah, I see him and Cas,’ Sam confirmed. ‘Crowley’s still trapped too. I ... something’s really wrong here, Kevin. Are you sure there were just three tasks?’

‘I think so,’ Kevin said. He wished now that he was there, though he knew he couldn’t be. Not with the baby on its way. This was all such a mess, he wished he’d listened to his mom and waited until after the baby was born, then at least he’d be able to be there with Sam. ‘Tell me what happened?’

‘It was kind of like an explosion,’ Sam replied. ‘Hang on a minute.’

And then he was gone again, leaving Kevin clutching the phone. His mom moved closer, letting him grab her hand and hold on. It wasn’t the hand he wanted right now but it would do and she sat down beside him, putting a hand around his shoulder as he listened to footsteps and shouting the phone's mic couldn’t quite pick up.

‘Alright,’ Sam said, suddenly there again and Kevin felt like he could breathe again. ‘Dean’s here, he’s fine. Like, it’s like he’s not ill any more. There’s a … a pit? I don’t know, Kevin. It’s weird. It looks like it should be a pit but like it’s not and it’s swirling … there’s a light. Cas thinks it’s the gate of Hell, but that should be shut, right?’

‘Yes,’ Kevin agreed, pushing himself up and, damn, there was the build again. Another contraction, and he couldn’t do this right now. ‘One second,’ he said, then he let the phone drop as he leant forward, bracing himself on the side of the bed to ride out the pain. It was intense, like something was trying to squeeze him into a ball or something equally ridiculous. Then the pain was going and he reached for the phone again, lifting it to hear Sam repeating his name.

‘It’s alright,’ Kevin interrupted. ‘I’m alright. I was a contraction, I’m fine.’

‘You didn’t sound fine,’ Sam argued and Kevin laughed.

‘Well, no. It hurt. But they’re doing what they should do right now. Has anything changed there?’

‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Kevin, I hate to ask but we need to know how to close this thing. We can’t leave it like this.’

‘I know,’ Kevin said, pushing himself up again. His mom didn’t say anything but she frowned as he went through to the main area of the boat and his board of notes. He glanced over them, nothing about a glowing portal to Hell but … but ...

Sacrifice.

Or not quite. A word that could mean sacrifice. It came up a lot but he’d thought in the context that it meant the sacrifice of completing the trials. Like, the sacrifice of time and effort but … what if ...

‘I’m an idiot,’ he said, panic rising. ‘Sam, I’m sorry. I think … I think it needs a sacrifice to close it.’

‘What kind of sacrifice?’ Sam asked, voice tight.

‘Like … like a soul. Or something that big. I think. It’s kind of vague, Sam. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s alright,’ Sam said, but he didn’t sound like it was alright. ‘I’ll … we’ll think of something. You don’t worry, just focus on what you have to do.’

‘Sam ...’

Sam had that determination back in his voice that Kevin associated with imminent danger. It was probably supposed to be reassuring but it really, really wasn't. ‘This isn’t your fault, alright. None of it. We picked this and … I’m going to come back to you.’

‘Please,’ Kevin said, but Sam had already hung up.

***

'Tell me I didn't just hear what I thought I heard,' Dean growled. 'A soul? A friggin' soul? After all this?'

'You didn't think it was gonna be easy, did you?' Sam said weakly, trying to _think_. He started to pace, and then whipped around when Dean started taking his leather jacket off. 'What are you doing?'

'Here,' said Dean, shoving the jacket and his keys at Sam.

'Dean, what are you doing?'

Dean looked at him as if he was crazy. 'I'm gonna jump in the box, Sam, what do you think?'

'No! Dean, you can't do that.' Sam started, dropping the jacket and reaching out for his brother. 'I won't let you.'

'I let you jump in a hole once for the sake of the universe, remember?' Dean said, face twisting in disgust at his own memories. 'My turn, Sammy. Who else is gonna do it?'

'There is another option,' Cas said, stepping forward, and for a moment Sam was relieved, thanking God, and then he saw that Cas was holding his own knife.

'Fuck's sake, Cas, not you too,' Sam said desperately. 'There _has_ to be an option that doesn't get one of us killed.' He swore, he fucking _swore_ , that everyone would come out of this okay. He refused to accept that either Dean or Cas might not make it out of the crappy warehouse.

'When has there ever, ever been a non-killing option?' Dean demanded. 'You're clutching at goddamn straws, Sam, and I'm willing to bet this thing has a closing date on it. Either I do this now, or we've wasted all this time, all this effort, for nothing.'

He glared at Sam, daring him to argue. Well, tough shit. Sam would always argue.

'My suggestion will get no-one killed,' said Cas calmly, picking Dean's jacket up off the floor and handing it back to him. 'If you will just listen to me.'

'Explain the knife then,' Sam demanded. Dean nodded, eyes burning into Cas's fiercely.

'If a sacrifice is required, I am in possession of something the equal of a human soul,' Cas said. 'And it will not take my life to give it.' He drew the blade of his knife over his forearm and as well as blood, something white-blue like burning magnesium welled up. Sam grabbed Dean before he could lunge forward, coming to a horrible conclusion.

'Your grace,' he said, and had to clutch Dean even harder. 'Cas, no.'

'Don't you dare,' Dean spat. 'Don't you fucking - no, Cas. _No,_ you hear me?'

'I must,' said Cas simply, shrugging, as the pull of the gaping portal to Hell sucked his grace away like water down a drain. 'If it is a choice between your life and my grace, well. There's no choice there. There never has been.'

The last strands of grace slipped from Cas and Sam could only watch as they spiralled down the portal or whatever the Hell it was. For a second there was a horrible calm, then the portal exploded.

***

Dean struggled to catch his breath. He was on his knees, the force of the blast had sent him over, crashing into Sam who’d fallen too, and knocking the wind right out of them. It had been so bright he almost didn’t dare to open his eyes, and it had been so loud his ears were ringing. It felt like a damn truck had slammed into him though he seemed to have avoided most of the injuries that came with having an actual truck slam into you.

Still, he wished he could just lay down and maybe sleep for a week or something. He ached. His lungs felt like that were on fire. And if he felt like this, well, he didn’t want to think how Cas must feel.

Because Cas must feel something. Must be _alive_ to feel something. There was no way that son of a bitch had taken that bullet for them and not lived to tell the tale. Dean wasn't going to accept that as an option. Cas was going to feel like shit, sure, it made sense, but goddammit Cas _was_ going to live through this.

Dean pushed himself up, gasping in lungfuls of air, and looked around. Crowley’s body was lying, limp and lifeless and damn but that was good to see. The entire place was even more trashed then it had been before and there, next to ground zero, lay Castiel. Not moving.

Shit.

Dean forced himself to his feet, ignoring Sam coughing behind him (coughing meant alive, he could fix that later, this was a triage situation) and stumbled the few steps to where Cas lay, dropping on his knees next to him. He leant down, laying a hand on the other man’s chest and he felt a reassuring rise and fall there. Breathing. Cas was breathing. This close he could hear it.

It was like all the fight left him as soon as he realised. Cas was alive. Dean flopped like a puppet with its strings cut, resting his head on the cold concrete and just letting himself breath for a few minutes. It was over. All of it. The gates to Hell were shut. No more Crowley, no more demons. He’d made it and he had Cas and he had Sam. It was more than he’d ever thought to hope for.

‘Is he …?’ Sam started, hesitantly, behind him and Dean laughed.

‘He’s fine. He’s gonna be fine,’ he said, clenching his fist where it was still lying on Cas’s chest. Sam laughed, a shaky fragile thing, and Cas chose that moment to stir, groaning and shifting as he came back to consciousness.

‘Hey,’ Dean said, pushing himself up again. Castiel blinked at him for a second as though he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing, then an uncertain smile touched his lips.

‘Hello, Dean.’

***

Cas kept fading in and out of consciousness, and it took both Sam and Dean to bundle him into the back of the Impala because he'd wake up and struggle until he figured out what was going on, and then pass out and become dead weight again.

'Drive carefully,' Sam said to Dean, folding himself into the passenger seat with a wince. 'I don't think he's gonna appreciate being thrown around back there.'

'Yeah, I know,' said Dean grimly. He turned the key and they shot out of the parking lot. Apparently he was going to go for speed as well as comfort? Sam didn't have a lot of hope for that combination. Still, they needed to get Cas somewhere safe, somewhere they could fix him up if he needed more than just rest, and it would be better faster than slower. Plus, Sam had somewhere to be right now.

'I'm gonna call Kevin,' he said, pulling his phone out.

Dean nodded. 'Tell him we're bringing Cas, and if he's got any idea what happens to an angel after they lose their grace, now would be a good time to bring it up,' he said. 'And Sam?'

'Yeah?' Sam said, distractedly, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line.

'I'm going as fast as I can.'

'I know,' said Sam, just as Kevin picked up.

'Sam? Thank God.' Kevin sounded tired. Utterly bone-tired.

'Are you okay? What's happening?'

'No baby yet, if that's what you're asking,' Kevin said, laughing softly. 'It'll get here. That part's pretty definite. But I want to know about you and Dean and Cas. Tell me what happened.'

'No-one died,' Sam said, tentatively. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Cas in the rearview mirror and wondered how long that answer was going to hold. Cas wasn't dead, but he didn't exactly look healthy, and Sam had no real reason to assume that something awful wasn't still waiting to drop on them out of the sky while they were vulnerable. He'd had a lot of experience living his own life.

'That's a start,' said Kevin bluntly. 'So what got sacrificed then?'

'Cas's grace,' Sam said, and tried to pretend Dean didn't flinch in the seat next to him.

‘Shit,’ Kevin said, voice tight. ‘Is he …?’

‘He’s out cold,’ Sam sighed, glancing over his shoulder. ‘We’ve just thrown him in the car and we’re on our way. I think Dean’s planning on breaking a few laws with the speed we’re going.’

‘Don’t crash and die on the way here,’ Kevin said, and he sounded like he was trying to make a joke but just didn’t have the energy for it.

‘We won’t,’ Sam promised. ‘We’ll be with you soon.’

‘I hope so,’ Kevin said. ‘Look, I’m … I can feel a contraction building so I’m going to hang up. I’m going to see you soon, alright?”

“Alright,” Sam agreed, but Kevin had already cut the line. He slumped back in his seat, looking out of the window. Right now his child was being born. He should be there. He wished he was there. He’d never felt so useless before. He knew what he had been doing was important but Kevin needed him.

He should be there.

***

The Impala had barely stopped when Sam pulled the door open and was spilling out and running to the boat and it was so damn familiar now, all of this. Too familiar - too many emergencies and near misses and damn, but he hoped this was only a near miss and not a miss altogether. He heard Dean running after him but didn’t stop until he reached the main living area of the boat.

Mrs Tran was sat there, cup of coffee in hand, obviously waiting for him. It told him everything he needed to know. If he wasn’t too late, if the baby wasn’t already here, she’d be with Kevin right now.

‘Are they alright?’ he asked, looking over at the closed bedroom door. Mrs Tran snorted, shoving herself up from the table.

‘No thanks to you they are,’ she said, stepping forward. ‘We managed just fine without you. Like most people do.’

‘Can I see?’ he asked, stepping forward. Mrs Tran moved to block him. Dean snorted behind him and, yeah, it was kind of sad that he was letting her stop him but she was Kevin’s mom and she’d just been here for him when Sam couldn't be. He had to respect that.

‘No,’ she said, laying a hand on his chest and pushing him back a little. ‘They’re resting, they don’t need you. In fact, they don’t need you at all. We’d all be better if you just got back in that ridiculous car and left.’

‘Hey,’ Dean growled, and Sam wasn’t sure if Dean was defending him or the car, but Mrs Tran didn’t let it slow her down either way.

‘All you’re good for is leaving. You show up in people’s lives and ruin them and then run on to the next disaster never thinking about what you’ve done. The people you’ve hurt. Well, you’ve done enough to Kevin. He might be a parent now but I’m still his mom, and I’m not letting you hurt him again. Just go now, it’ll be better for all of us.’

She couldn’t have hurt Sam more if she’d shot him in the gut. He gave the words a second to sink in, but he knew the worst thing about them was that they were true. All of it was true. They travelled around the country saving people but, yeah, they did kind of leave a trail of destruction in their wake and nobody could argue he hadn’t ruined Kevin’s life. If Kevin had never met them he might be at college now, might have a normal life - not a baby and a shitty God-given destiny.

‘You’re wrong,’ Dean protested, but Sam was shaking his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam said. ‘You’re probably right. I just … just let me see them, just once, then I’ll go. I should get to see my own kid once, right?’

‘Sam,’ Dean said, like it physically pained him to hear Sam give up, but this was for the best, really. What kind of life could he offer a kid? What kind of relationship could he offer Kevin? He’d never done anything right in his life, it was stupid to think he deserved this.

‘I guess,’ Mrs Tran said, and she looked almost soft for a second.

‘He deserves to see him more than once.’

Everyone in the room jumped. Kevin was leaning on the bedroom door, clearly exhausted but smiling. The softness dropped right off Mrs Tran’s face.

‘Kevin, I’m trying to help you.’

‘I get that but, Mom, I’m not a kid any more. I _have_ a kid, and I know you’re trying to make the best decisions for me but you don't get to do that anymore. I’ve got to make the best decisions I can for my son, and that’s for Sam to be in his life.”

“He?” Dean interrupted. “You had a boy?”

“Yep,” Kevin said, looking damn proud of himself. “A healthy boy who’s going to grow up with two parents in his life, if Sam wants.”

“I want,” Sam confirmed. He crossed the room, ignoring the others now. This was probably insane, but it was also kind of everything he wanted. Kevin met him at the door and pulled him through to meet their son.

***

Dean decided, after the bedroom door had remained shut for two minutes and Mrs Tran hadn't said a word, that it was time to go get Cas. He couldn't leave the guy out in the car for much longer - what if he woke up and no-one was there? Dean didn't want to think about what might happen.

Cas was still completely zonked, but Dean managed to haul him out of the back seat and get him in a fireman's carry to get him on board the boat. There was a moth-eaten armchair in one corner of the main cabin, so he put the ex-angel down in that as the best available option. He didn't even stir, but he was breathing, so Dean left him to it, and went to make coffee. Standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil was preferable to sitting in the main cabin waiting for the atmosphere to get less awkward.

He debated not going back out, actually, and just drinking his coffee down in the kitchen, but in the end he poured two mugs, shoved the sugar bag under his arm, picked up the milk and went back out into the main cabin.

'Here,' he said, putting one mug and the other stuff down in front of Mrs Tran. 'I don't know how you drink it, but -'

'Thank you,' said Mrs Tran without really reacting. She pulled the mug in front of herself and wrapped her hands around it.

'I get it,' Dean said, sitting down with his own coffee. 'You want to protect him -'

'And you think he's too big and grown-up for me to have a say any more,' Mrs Tran said, still not looking at him properly. She sighed. 'Kevin explained everything, and I can see how it happened, although believe me, I'm still angry that it happened at all. I'm grateful for everything you and your brother have done for Kevin and me. But I won't stand aside and let him fool himself into thinking that Sam's going to give up hunting to be a father. I won't let Kevin be abandoned. And if that means chasing Sam off, I'm okay with that. It's a little heartache now compared to a lot of it later.'

She looked up then, steel in her expression. 'I'm sure you understand.'

Dean had to respect that. 'I do,' he said. 'Hell, if our places were switched, I'd do the same thing. But I _know_ Sam. You wanna protect Kevin? So does he. You think this baby has a right to a stable childhood? No-one knows that better than Sam, trust me. And we have better … resources, I guess, than maybe you think we do.'

'Resources?'

'For a start, we don't live out of motel rooms and the Impala any more,' Dean pointed out. 'We'd've tried to move Kevin earlier, actually, but he … well, you know how he gets when he's working. We've got a _bunker_ , Mrs Tran. It's the safest place you could ever imagine, and it's got a library you could get lost in. Kevin could do his work there and we could help raise the baby.' He hadn't _asked_ Cas, obviously, but he was pretty sure Cas would be on board with that kind of a plan. He was all about protecting people.

Mrs Tran didn't look entirely convinced, but she wasn't yelling at him. She steepled her fingers in front of her and looked at him hard. 'We?'

'Kevin and Sam and me. And Cas. That kid's got two stubborn-ass dads and two very over-protective uncles waiting to meet him. Don't cut us out, ma'am. Don't write Sam off before you've given him a chance to prove himself. Please.'

There was the sound of laughter from the next room, like maybe Kevin had made a joke and he and Sam were getting on, maybe like there was some kind of family moment happening in there, and both Dean and Mrs Tran looked up and at the door, then at each other.

‘I guess I have no choice,’ Mrs Tran said, but her shoulders relaxed a little and she finally took a sip of her coffee, so Dean counted it as a victory.

***

‘Alright,’ Kevin said, shutting the door behind Sam. ‘There he is. Don’t wake him up.’

‘I won’t,’ Sam said, moving quickly over to the crib Kevin's mom had put up in here. The baby was asleep. Kevin was honestly kind of surprised there hadn't been more screaming and crying and poop, but actually he'd settled pretty easily. His mom had just laughed and told him the first few weeks were easy, then the fun started.

‘He’s tiny,’ Sam said, and he sounded almost reverent. Kevin snorted, moving over to stand beside him and look down at the baby. He was kind of tiny, kind of wrinkly and red too, but, well, everyone had to start somewhere and he had plenty of time to improve. ‘Have you named him yet?’

‘No, I was waiting for you,’ Kevin said, bumping his shoulder against Sam’s arm. ‘I mean, I could hardly name him without you.’

‘You definitely could have,’ Sam said. ‘I mean, you’ve done all the hard work, you should get to name him.’

‘Hey, I couldn’t have coped without you,’ Kevin said, reaching out to grab Sam’s hand. ‘I think I’d have gone mad without you to talk to for the last few months and, well, you’re going to be around more, right? Things are going to get better now, the gates to Hell are shut.’

‘There are always other hunts,' Sam pointed out. 'I'd … I'd like to be able to say I could give it all up and come be Suburban Dad with you, but I can't. There's too much work to be done. I can't walk away from that, or from Dean.'

Sam hated to have to say things like that, but he couldn't lie to Kevin. He refused to. And he had this twisted, hopeful and scared, feeling in his gut like maybe, just maybe, there could be a way he could have his family - _all_ of his family - and hunt, all at once. Maybe this could work.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Kevin agreed, leaning in. ‘You’re always going to be a hunter and I’m always going to be a prophet, but I figure if anyone can make that mess work it’s us. We’re basically specialists in weird shit so … I mean, unless you don’t want to ...’

‘Don’t want to what?’ Sam asked cautiously. He risked a glance over at Kevin then looked away when he saw Kevin was watching him. Kevin sighed, dropped Sam’s hand and reached up to cup both his hands around Sam’s face, turning him so he could look in the other man’s eyes.

‘Don’t want to be a family,’ Kevin clarified. ‘Or, don't want to be with me … I mean, if you don’t, it’s alright, I’m not going to stop you seeing the baby or anything but I … I kind of want you and I thought maybe you wanted me too.’

‘That’s still a bad idea,’ Sam said, reaching up to brush hair away from Kevin’s forehead and Kevin grinned.

‘Because why? You might get me surprise wrong-gender teen pregnant again? We’ll cope.’ Sam didn’t laugh though so Kevin sighed then leant up, brushing a soft kiss against Sam’s lips. ‘I don’t know if this is going to work, Sam, but I want to try. I want to go live in your ridiculous secret bunker and put up with Dean fussing all the time and pretending he’s not fussing, and spend my life researching things that shouldn’t even exist, and I want to try and convince a school board somewhere that ‘secret bunker’ is totally a legitimate address because that’s going to be a laugh, and how are we even going to get a birth certificate for him anyway? But, mostly, I just kind of want you to kiss me now.’

Sam did. It was glorious.

It didn’t last very long because baby decided that was a great time to start crying, but it was something, and as Sam stepped away and gently lifted their baby he couldn’t stop grinning. Maybe this was going to work out after all.

‘You still need to name him,’ Kevin reminded him, stepping closer and holding his finger out for the baby to grasp as he cried. 'Or we do. I kind of don't have any suggestions ready though. Ideas?'

Sam looked down at the baby then back up at Kevin, and smiled. Kevin had had a funny feeling maybe this was something Sam had been thinking about for months just like Kevin had been trying not to think about it. Maybe the rest of the world thought Sam Winchester was a scary giant with an itchy trigger finger but Kevin was pretty sure he was a massive sap. Baby names seemed like something family-starved Winchesters might fixate on.

‘How about Robert?’ Sam said, softly. ‘Bobby for short?’

‘Sure,’ Kevin agreed, leaning in to Sam's side and mentally fitting the name to his baby to see how it felt. He’d kind of been expecting that or John, he’d heard a lot about them from Sam. ‘Robert Winchester.’

‘No. Robert Tran,’ Sam corrected. ‘You should be in the name somewhere and, also, I don’t know if you noticed but my family’s kind of cursed. I think fewer people walking around with a Winchester target painted on their back is a good thing.’ Okay. Maybe Sam'd been thinking about this a _lot_.

‘I’m not going to argue,’ Kevin said with a shrug and a smile that he couldn't seem to keep off his face. ‘Bobby Tran. Now, you want to go inflict him on your brother before he goes back to sleep? I can’t wait to see how he combines trying to look manly with getting excited about a new baby.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, shifting Bobby, who’d stopped crying and was quickly falling asleep again. ‘I will. I just want to do this first.’

And then Sam kissed Kevin again and it was perfect.


	5. Epilogue - Five Years Later

Turned out that when you had a five year old, alarms were something you didn’t really need. Kevin woke up to the familiar little snick of the door opening. Hazily he wished for the days when he would have slept through a sound like that but that was oh so long ago and before he’d had time to really wake up there were tiny feet pattering across the floor and a loud ooomph from Sam as Bobby flung himself on top of his other dad.

Kevin grinned. He’d just been giving in to Winchester paranoia when he’d agreed that he should sleep on the inside but it had paid him dividends over the years as Sam was always the one Bobby found first when he came to wake them up. He was already giggling at his conquest of Mount Sam when Kevin opened his eyes, and sliding down into the gap between them, and Kevin sighed and reached over to hug him.

‘Hey, baby,’ he grumbled, kissing Bobby’s soft black hair and bundling him in close. ‘You alright?’

‘’Course I am, Daddy,’ Bobby responded, pushing away. ‘It’s time to get up.’

‘Is it really?’ Kevin asked, glancing over at the clock. 7am and it was Friday so about an hour and a quarter before he had to drive the kid to school. Maybe one day he’d convince the school bus driver that ‘secret bunker’ was a legitimate location to so he could just put the kid on the bus in the morning instead of having to be coherent enough to drive.

‘I think you’re wrong,’ Sam groaned, stretching a little but not opening his eyes.

‘I’m not,’ Bobby protested, offended, as he threw himself on Sam’s chest again. ‘Uncle Dean says it’s time to wake up and I’ve got to wake you up ‘cause you’re both lazy.’

‘Oh, Uncle Dean says that, does he,’ Sam growled. He reached out and scooped Bobby up, holding him upside down and climbing quickly out of bed even as Bobby shouted, ‘Papa, no, I’m too big now,’ in protest. Kevin laughed and rolled out of bed himself before following Sam and Bobby down to the kitchen.

Cas and Dean were already there, of course. The freaks still didn’t seem to sleep, but at least they made coffee when they got up, and Kevin helped himself to a cup as Sam started making Bobby some cereal. He flopped down on a chair, watched Sam and Bobby at the counter - talking about which of the sugar laden cereals were the best. He watched Dean and Cas, leaning in to talk to each other about something or other. It was a bit chaotic but it was home.

***

When Kevin got back from having dropped Bobby off and lying his way through friendly parental small-talk, the bunker was quiet. It got like that sometimes, when everyone scattered - Sam was usually in the library or the armoury, Dean could be anywhere but given they didn't have any actual cases on right now he was probably in the kitchen, and Cas … well, Cas was a little erratic but he usually ended up wherever Dean was. Unless everyone was home and Bobby wanted a big smooth floor to play with his toy cars on, they all tended to avoid the big, echoing main room.

Kevin dropped the Impala's keys next to the record player where Dean would hopefully find them without having to tear the place apart again, and was trying to sort through his mental to-do list of research when the first phone rang - FBI. Kevin picked it up and dropped into the 'one-of-our-best-agents-how-dare-you-question-her' routine, and no sooner had he got that one wrapped up than the local law enforcement phone went off as well.

Kevin still had the phone clamped to his ear, rifling through a grimoire and trying to think of ways to talk the local sheriff two towns over out of busting into what sounded like a full-on Black Mass (not teenagers on PCP - it was never teenagers on PCP) when Dean came in.

He made some gesture he probably thought was entirely transparent and obvious, and which actually made no earthly sense to anyone, except possibly Sam, who wasn't there. Kevin shrugged at him and waved at the phone with a momentarily-free hand. Dean rolled his eyes, but waited.

'What's up?' Kevin asked after he'd finally managed to convince the sheriff to wait for the specially-trained PCP response team officer he would be sending over (a.k.a. Garth).

'Stuff's starting to crop up that looks a hell of a lot like pagan gods, one state over,' Dean said, leaning on the map table. 'Weird weather, people speaking in tongues, disappearances, whole nine yards.'

'We haven't seen that in a while,' Kevin said, putting the phone and the grimoire down and biting his lip, thinking. He looked up at Dean. 'Anyone dead yet?'

'No confirmed deaths,' said Dean, shrugging. 'Yet. But I don't like it.'

'Have you got a fix on it?' Kevin asked. 'No use running off without a plan.'

Dean sighed. 'Got about a hundred-mile radius, that's about it. I've got Ash's old search thingie keeping an eye on the news and the meteorological sites. Cas is cross-checking old prophecies.'

'Sounds like you've done everything you can at this stage,' Kevin said, as authoritatively as he could. Sam called it his Prophet Voice. God knows why, but Dean deferred to it.

'I don't like it,' Dean said, repeating himself. 'I don't like sitting here on my ass when something's going on.'

'We don't know for sure that anything is going on,' Kevin pointed out. 'And you know how our weekends usually shape up - bet you anything there'll be a case for you in twenty four hours or less.'

Dean squinted at him. 'I don't bet with you, kiddo,' he said. 'Remember? You've got that little advantage.' But he was smiling, kind of, so Kevin smirked.

'Would I ever use my God-given gift of prophecy to win a bet with you?' he asked as innocently as he could.

Dean snorted and pushed up off the table back onto his feet. 'Yeah, you would,' he says. 'Whatever. I should go do something useful while I'm waiting for this case to turn up, I guess.' He headed straight into the kitchen.

Kevin shook his head fondly and was about to head down to the library when the Animal Control hotline phone started ringing.

***

Kevin shoved the door to the kitchen open with his shoulder and froze, all thought of sandwich filling leaving his mind. Dean and Cas were at the counter, stood just that little bit too close together to be just friends. Not that it was unusual for them but after five years of them staring quizzically at each other over increasingly short distances Kevin was getting kind of bored of the whole thing.

Problem was, Dean and Cas didn’t seem to see it and they just both turned to look at him, together, as though he were the weird one in this situation. This was probably the only situation in the world he didn’t qualify as the weird one - where he was actually the person who more or less had his shit together.

‘What are you staring at?’ Dean asked, and Kevin gave up with a sigh. Every time he found them like that he hung back like maybe this would be the time they’d actually put that closeness to good use but, no, not yet. Winchester men, what could you do?

‘You know, I don’t think you have to stand that close to make sandwiches,’ he said, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut. He dumped the book he’d been carrying on the table and watched as Dean frowned at Cas like he was just figuring out how close they were.

‘I was just helping him,’ Dean said, defensively, and Kevin snorted because the entire ‘Cas doesn’t understand humanity and we need to help him’ line had been valid for about six months but after five years it was growing pretty thin - especially when applied to things like making sandwiches. Cas gave him a dirty look and Kevin just shrugged, leaning back on the table to wait his turn.

Cas and Dean were silently sharing the mayonnaise when Sam came in to the kitchen. He did the same kind of pause Kevin had done which got him a glare from Dean before he headed over to the table, dropped his books and leant in for a kiss. Kevin gave him one, he was generous that way.

By the time they pulled apart Dean and Cas had finished their incredibly complicated sandwich construction and were shoving all the books over so they could have some table to eat one. Sam pushed them back a little and Kevin sat down, grabbing his book to leaf through while Sam made them both sandwiches.

‘I wish you’d leave that geek stuff out of the kitchen,’ Dean grumbled. ‘It’s bad enough I have to live with it, I don’t want to see it while I’m eating.’

‘Oh, grow up,’ Kevin said, flipping through the book. ‘I’m looking for something on wendigos for Tom. You ever fought one?’

‘Of course we have,’ Dean said, launching into a list of important things to know when fighting a wendigo. Kevin pushed his book aside and listened. Books were great and all but Dean (and Sam) was a pretty good resource in himself. He scribbled a few notes and Dean finished up just as Sam set the sandwich down in front of Kevin. Kevin smile and grabbed it, taking a bite.

‘You know, kid, you could just ask,’ Dean said with a shrug. Kevin rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, I could, but you’re not always here and I know you won’t believe this but you don’t know everything.’

‘Yeah, well, I know about wendigos,’ Dean said with a shrug, picking up his sandwich again. ‘You got any hunts on the horizon yet?’

‘You know we’ll let you know when we do,’ Sam said, rolling his eyes. ‘Do you hate being here so much?’

‘Hell no,’ Dean replied as Cas shook his head emphatically, finishing the last bite of his sandwich.

‘We enjoy being here very much, but it’s good to have something to do,’ Cas said, standing and taking his plate to the sink. Dean nodded and Kevin did know what they meant. In theory they all ran this place together but really Cas and Dean hunted, Sam and Kevin ran the base. It wasn’t a bad setup.

‘We still haven’t cleared out that last weapons store if you’re desperate,’ Sam said with a shrug. Dean got that look on his face for a second that would have been a kind of innocent joy if it hadn’t been on the face of a Winchester thinking about weapons.

‘You don’t mind us doing it?’ he asked, and Kevin just rolled his eyes as Sam shook his head. Dean shoved the rest of the sandwich in his mouth and stood, dumping his plate in the sink and grabbing Cas’s shoulder to steer him out of the door. As soon as they were gone Kevin lent over, bumping his shoulder against Sam’s.

‘You know, that’s our last great distraction technique you just used up.’

‘I know,’ Sam said with a shrug. ‘We’ll have to think of some more. Hopefully a job’ll come through soon anyway.’

‘Hopefully,’ Kevin said, leaning over to kiss Sam on the cheek then moving to dump his plate and head back out, leaving Sam with the washing.

***

Amazingly for a place that was basically carved out of rock and lined with lead and concrete, the cell reception in the bunker, just like the wifi, was pretty good. Kevin was trying to reorganise the stacks of books they'd grabbed in a hurry out of the library the last time there'd been a big case on when his phone went off - his phone, not any of the emergency contact phones or the house line that was mostly used by Charlie, calling to try and recruit Dean back into her literal nerd army.

'Hello?' he said when he picked up, trained by Sam and Dean long ago to never answer with a name until you knew what name the person on the other end was expecting you to be using.

'Kevin? It's me,' said his mom, and he smiled and sat down.

'Hey Mom, how are you?'

'Oh, fine,' she said. 'Feeling excommunicated lately,' she added teasingly. 'Am I ever going to see my grandson again?'

Kevin rolled his eyes. 'Sure you are,' he said. 'But he's got school, and we've all got … work … and if you hadn't noticed, you keep having important business meetings that mean you have to fly all over the country. Take a weekend and come visit,' he suggested. 'Bobby'd love to see you again.'

'And you?'

'You know I always want to see you,' Kevin said softly. 'I miss you when you're not around to run my life.'

His mom laughed. 'Or threaten your boyfriend?'

'Please. He eats threats for breakfast.'

'Good, that means I can feed him up a little when I come visit then, doesn't it?' She paused, and there was a rustling noise. 'How does the weekend after next sound? I don't have anything arranged for then yet, so I should probably fill it up before my secretary does it for me.'

'Sounds fine,' Kevin said, crossing his fingers there wouldn't be a sudden supernatural threat that weekend. On the other hand, it had happened before, and they'd dealt. And his mom was kind of good at manning the phones for when the place turned into a hunters' crisis center and switchboard.

'Good. Okay, I've got to go. You say hello to those boys of yours, and give Bobby a kiss for me, okay?'

'Yes Mom.'

'Love you, Kevin.'

'Love you too, Mom.'

Kevin hung up after his mom had, and reached for the calendar Sam had pinned on the wall (in deference to Dean's delusion that no-one thought anything was going on with him and Cas, it was a pin-up girl calendar) - only for the house phone to start ringing shrilly. It was the line hunters used to call and he picked it up with a sigh, glancing up at the clock. Damn, he hadn’t realised how late it had got. He needed to get out of here to get his baby - the school already suspected he was crazy or something, thanks to the secret-bunker address and the frequent worrying family stories Bobby came out with at Show and Tell, without adding negligent to the list.

‘What’s wrong?’ he snapped.

‘Hey, is that any way to talk to an old friend?’ Garth said, and Kevin grinned because it was always kind of good to hear from Garth.

‘No,’ he said, ‘though your timing sucks. Did you just phone to chat or do you have something for me?’

‘A job over your way. Looks like a simple salt and burn - wondered if Dean and Cas wanted to take it and save me the drive?’

‘I’ll see if I can find someone to answer that for you,’ he said, glancing down the corridor to see Sam heading his way. ‘I’m gonna have to run and get the kid from school, Sam’s headed in this direction now, he’ll take care of it.’

‘Great,’ Garth said, and Kevin missed anything else he might have said as he took the phone away from his ear, waving it at Sam who’d just come into the room then putting it on the side, grabbing the car keys and running out.

***

Kevin let a smile cross his face as he pulled up outside the bunker. The doors to the Impala were open and though nobody was in sight there were _things_ about. _Things_ like the Impala was being loaded, which meant Dean and Cas were going hunting.

He immediately felt a bit guilty for the smile. It wasn’t that he wanted Dean and Cas gone and they weren’t family or anything, it was just that if Dean went too long between hunts he got pretty much unbearable. This way he’d get to blow off some steam and, well, if Kevin got to spend a little more time with just Sam over the weekend he wasn’t going to complain.

‘Daddy,’ Bobby said, obviously having just caught sight of the Impala. Kevin glanced in the rear view mirror to see the excitement on his son’s face and his own smile fell away. Looked like he was in for some fun. ‘Uncle Dean’s going out.’

‘Looks like it,’ Kevin agreed, killing the engine and unbuckling.

‘I wanna go to,’ Bobby declared, making grabby motions with his little hands and Kevin had the weirdest urge to reach out and tuck those hands back in, to tuck his baby into his arms and not let go.

‘When you’re older,’ he said instead, getting out of the car and heading round. By the time he opened Bobby’s door the kid was looking despondent. He waited for Kevin to unfasten his belt then slipped out of his seat, dodging a hug and starting for the doors to the bunker. Kevin glanced around but the others were emerging with bags so he finished locking up the car and left them to catch his errant son.

‘Uncle Dean,’ Bobby shouted. ‘I want to go on an adventure with you!’

‘When you’re older,’ Sam said before Dean could get a word in. Kevin turned to find Dean giving Bobby an oddly contemplative look.

‘You always say that,’ Bobby complained. ‘I’m older now, I want to go with Uncle Dean and Uncle Cas.’

‘You’re still too little,’ Sam insisted, reaching down to scoop Bobby up in his arms but Bobby squirmed away, running to Dean instead and throwing arms around his middle.

‘You keep saying I’m a big boy now,’ he protested. ‘I gotta go to the big boy school and clean my own room like a big boy, so I wanna go with Uncle Dean.’

‘You do keep telling him how grown up he is now,’ Dean said with a shrug. Kevin rolled his eyes at that. They’d had this discussion before a million times. Since Bobby was old enough to talk he’d wanted to be with Uncle Dean. Kevin had actually taken it kind of personally a few times, but he knew it wasn’t really personal. Bobby loved him with a kind of certainty that he’d always be there. There would always be Dad and Papa, but Uncle Dean was cool and he went on adventures, so of course Bobby would want to be just like him.

The problem was, Dean didn’t see why he shouldn't be. Not entirely, of course, but Dean had been younger than Bobby was now when he was introduced to the hunter lifestyle and Sam had basically hunted for this entire life, so Dean was just waiting for the all-clear to easy Bobby in.

But Bobby was still a baby. Still Kevin’s baby and he wasn’t going to grow up used to the kind of danger and violence Dean and Sam thought were normal.

‘You know,’ Cas interrupted, juggling his bag. ‘I’m not … I don’t like to interfere,’ and that was true. He was getting better all the time but he still seemed almost scared of Bobby. Scared of breaking him, anyway. He could barely cope with his own mortality, he generally left the child-rearing decisions to Sam and Kevin. ‘But this does sound like an exceptionally easy hunt. If you wanted a weekend we could take him and I could remain in the hotel with Bobby while Dean finished the hunt.’

‘That’s no fun,’ Bobby whined but Dean was nodding.

‘Yeah, actually. Kind of introduce him to the theory - being on the road and all that. We wouldn’t put him in any place he could get hurt of course, we’re not crazy. And you two could have a weekend to yourself. When’s the last time you had that?’

Kevin couldn’t reply to that because, of course, they hadn’t had anything like that in ages. Dean took responsibility for Bobby sometimes, but he didn’t take him out for more than a few hours at a time. An entire weekend just for the two of them did sound tempting.

‘Please, Daddy,’ Bobby said, finally abandoning Dean to come and throw his arms around Kevin. Kevin looked up to meet Sam’s eye. Sam looked, well, he didn’t look like he thought it was a terrible idea. When Kevin raised an eyebrow he shrugged.

‘It is pretty close,’ Sam said. ‘If something went wrong they could be back in like forty minutes. They probably wouldn’t even need to stay over normally but, yeah, they could take Bobby and make a weekend of it.’

‘Please,’ Bobby said again, clinging tighter, and Kevin sighed. It wasn’t a terrible idea and, well, why not?

‘Alright,’ he said, ‘Looks like we’re going to need to pack you a bag.’

***

Sam left Kevin and Bobby packing a bag and chased the sounds of clanking until he found Dean in the armoury.

'Going a little bit overkill here, aren't we?' he said, leaning in the doorway and watching Dean fill a duffle with an arsenal that seemed extensive for a ghost hunt.

'Can't be too careful,' Dean said. 'Plus we don't keep everything in the car any more, so I can't just assume I'll be able to find what I need if there's an unexpected complication.' He looked up at Sam. 'I thought you'd want every precaution taken, anyway. I almost can't believe you're letting Bobby come along. Dude, you wouldn't even let me give him a water pistol for his birthday.'

'You're not letting him anywhere near the firearms,' Sam said, coming into the room properly and poking into the duffle bag. He didn't want to get all overprotective-dad about this but he needed to draw a few lines. 'Alright?'

'A couple of cans for target practice -'

' _No_ , Dean. He's only five, for God's sake. You can't give a five year old a handgun!'

Dean rolled his eyes. 'Earlier he starts, better shot he'll be in the end.' He held up his hands in a 'surrender' gesture before Sam could start yelling, though. 'But you're the boss. No guns. No danger of any kind. Hell, I'll wrap him up in cotton wool literally if you like. Or get one of those leash things. Bet that'd look cute - think we can get people to buy it being Bring Your Kid To Work Day at the FBI?'

Sam sighed. 'Can you take this seriously for just five goddamn minutes? This is my kid we're talking about.'

'I don't see what you're so worked up about, Sammy. Of course I'm gonna take care of him. And do you really think Cas would ever let anything happen on his watch? Bobby's gonna be the best-protected kid in the world next to the friggin' President's kids. Better, actually, cos have you seen the Secret Service lately? I could take 'em with one hand tied behind my back.'

Sam ran a hand through his hair, feeling way older than he was. 'Dean.'

'What? Jeez, Sam, stop being a little bitch. It's going to be fine.' Dean dumped another box of shells in his duffle and started zipping it back up.

'You're the only person I would ever trust to do this, is what,' Sam said, and Dean's eyes snapped back up to his face. 'I know that if you hadn't taken care of me when I was Bobby's age I probably wouldn't have made it as far as high school. I know that you won't let anything happen to him. But I also know how dangerous it is out there, and _he's my son_. So yeah, I'm kinda paranoid, Dean. I'm trusting you with pretty much the most precious thing I have, so can you stop being a jerk about it?'

Sam looked away, because he hadn't meant to get quite so … intense … about it, and he got taken by surprise, almost winded, by how how hard Dean hugged him.

'... alright, who died?' asked Kevin from behind them. They disentangled themselves and Sam turned around to see Cas, Kevin, and Bobby, who was carrying a little red backpack, staring at them.

He and Dean probably needed to hug more often if that was currently the default assumption.

***

Kevin stood with Bobby on his hip, watching them pile the last of the things in to the Impala. Bobby was too big for this really, though Sam didn’t exactly struggle with it. He’d nearly overbalanced Kevin by leaning back to watch what was going on at the car and Kevin’s arms were aching from holding him but he didn’t want to let him go.

He knew he was being ridiculous. Bobby was going less than an hour’s drive away. Dean had promised he wouldn’t be hurt, Cas had promised he wouldn’t be hurt. He’d probably get bored hanging around in a motel room and then never ask to go again but it still felt … it felt like his baby was growing up and leaving him.

He so wasn’t ready for this.

‘You sure you still want to go?’ he asked, tightening his hold a little. ‘It’s not too late to just stay home with Daddy and Papa.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Bobby giggled, squirming in Kevin’s grasp. Kevin sighed. It had been a long shot, but he’d had to try.

Sam had, by now, disengaged from Dean and Cas and was walking over. Kevin gave in, letting Bobby down so he could run to his Papa, arms outstretched. Sam caught him mid-run and swept him up like he was still a toddler, spinning him around then pulling him in tight for a hug. Kevin smiled to himself. This was his family and it was ridiculous but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

‘Alright,’ Sam said finally, setting Bobby down again. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yep,’ Bobby said, puffing his chest out. ‘I’m really ready.’

‘Good,’ Sam said, ruffling his hair.

‘And you know how to use the phone if you want us?’ Kevin interrupted, stepping closer. Bobby gave him the most unimpressed look and then gave a big put-upon sigh.

‘Of course, Daddy,’ he said, shaking his head as though he couldn’t even believe what he was hearing. Kevin tried to ignore Dean cracking up in the background and knelt down to give Bobby one more big hug.

‘You listen to Uncle Dean and do everything he tells you to do, alright?’

‘Alright,’ Bobby agreed, hugging him back quickly then stepping away. Kevin walked back to the door of the bunker to watch as Dean settled Bobby in the booster seat and then climbed in the front of the car. Sam came over to stand by him and, after a second, reached over and took his hand. Kevin linked their fingers and watched as they drove away.

***

'Nice to have the place to ourselves for once,' said Kevin later, when they were eating dinner at the kitchen table, surrounded by research they weren't being asked to move.

Sam looked at him. 'Two hours ago you were saying the place sounded empty without the three 'kids' making noise and mess all over the place.'

Kevin shrugged, but he didn't look up from his plate. 'I dunno,' he said. 'Nothing wrong with a bit of peace and quiet.'

Under the table, Kevin's toes brushed Sam's ankle.

Sam couldn't help the sudden grin that spread across his face. He leaned forward. 'Oh really?'

Kevin finally looked up, something mischievous in his eyes. 'We don't really get much … peace and quiet … any more these days,' he pointed out. 'Y'know.' He kept up the constant, slightly maddening slide of his feet against Sam's, like they were in a bar or a diner or something and they had to be subtle. Like Kevin was trying to put the moves on Sam. 'I just figured we could take advantage of that.'

'In the kitchen?' Sam said, because pointing out their current location was probably better than sweeping Kevin off his feet and saying something caveman like 'Bed. Now,' because Sam liked to think he was past the point in his life where he wanted to do things like that.

Kevin smirked. 'Tempting,' he said. 'But I'm thinking bedroom. Got something I wanna … talk to you about.'

'Oh really?' Sam got up from the table, pushing the plates away and leaning down to steal a kiss. 'You probably won't have to talk for very long,' he added, murmuring against Kevin's skin. 'You always make me do crazy shit.'

'This might be a little different,' said Kevin, and … was that a blush? Sam let him get up from the table under his own power but couldn't resist yanking him in for another kiss, and another one, once he was standing. Somehow they did manage to make it back to their room although Sam was damned if he could work out how - all he remembered was having Kevin jammed up against him and the vague feeling of fingers messing with the hem of his shirt.

'So what's this thing, then?' Sam asked when they finally pulled apart enough to get actual words out.

'You can say no,' said Kevin, letting go entirely and sitting on the edge of the bed, next to his bedside table. 'I mean, I'll totally understand.'

'If it's something you want,' Sam said, 'I'll at least try it once.' He sat down next to Kevin, not liking the space and the sudden seriousness between them.

Kevin fumbled in the bedside table's middle drawer, the one with the child-lock on it. The one full of things they didn't want to have to explain to Bobby. He delved right into the back, ignoring all the usual things he might have reached for, and pulled out a velvet-wrapped lump that looked way too familiar.

Sam's mouth went dry. 'Is that -?' he said, disbelievingly.

Kevin was cradling it in his hands like it was precious. This was not what Sam was expecting at all. He didn't know what to think.

'I thought we got rid of that,' Sam said. 'I remember locking the curse box and filing the damn thing.'

'Please?' Kevin said, jaw set stubbornly. 'I keep thinking about it, Sam. Bobby's old enough, he should have a little brother or sister, and I want to try. We can do it safe this time. Right from the start. And this time you know I want you.' He started to unwrap the medallion, although he was still, Sam noted, very careful not to touch it. 'I really, really want you,' Kevin said, looking up at him.

'I don't want to put you through that again,' Sam said weakly, as Kevin shifted closer. 'It hurt you, Kevin.'

'Only because I didn't know what was happening,' Kevin said. 'And because you were being careful. This time, Sam - think about it. Gonna need you, gonna want you so bad, and you can do whatever you like, put a baby in me and know that I want you to. You can't tell me that doesn't get you going just a little bit,' he said, grinning and running his free hand over Sam's thigh. 'Right?'

Sam had to close his eyes, bite his lip, try to keep a little bit of control because if they were going to do this he wanted to make sure they'd at least had a grownup conversation about it first. 'You really want this,' he said, looking Kevin in the eye as seriously as he could. 'You really want another nine months of pregnancy, and with Bobby and all the rest of us underfoot, and you really want to have that conversation with your mom a second time -'

'Yeah, I do,' said Kevin, almost defiantly. 'And I really, really want you here for all of it,'

'I'll be here,' said Sam fiercely. 'Don't you ever -'

Kevin wound one hand around the back of Sam's head and kissed him hard, open-mouthed and determined, and Sam _felt_ it the moment Kevin touched the metal of the medallion, like a shock going through them both.

‘Thank you,’ Kevin whispered into the skin of Sam’s neck and Sam yanked him closer. This time he wasn’t going to miss a second.

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death is of Crowley, in chapter four.


End file.
